HoO Characters read The Lightning Thief
by Keyblade Master Liz Castellan
Summary: It was just an ordinary day for Jason Grace in Camp Half-Blood, wehn suddenly Thalia and Rachel bring books that tell Percy Jackson's Story. Since nobody mentions what Percy Really did, jason is ready to find out why the Greek demigods look up to Percy Jackson so much. *This is my first ever fanfic,it will include gods, and demigods too. Please R&R!Enjoy :)
1. Chapter 1

**The HoO Read The Lightning Thief;Chapter 1**

-**JASON**-

Today started off pretty normal, or as normal as it would ever get in a Greek hero training camp.I just finished today's sword fighting class with a bruised sholder, thanks to Clarrise from Ares. I swear she was the only girl (or one of the only girls) who could take me on in a sword fight..

Anyway back to the story, I was pretty distracted, thinking about all the things that had happened in these last few months away from home. Away from my friends, my room. A few days ago, my memory had completely returned. I remembered every single moment in my life, the places I've been, and the friends I have...

"Hey there Sparky! You alright? You look pale",a male voice said behind me. I turn and see my best friend, Leo Valdez, walk beside me. Leo was not the tallest person I knew, but what he lacked in height he made up with wit and his sense of humor. He had pointy ears, curly brown hair and eyes, a crazy,trouble-maker type of grin that would immediately made you think he had picked your pockets.

Leo was also ADHD, which meant he was never still. He always had something in his hands. Leo was a son of Hephaestus, which meant he could build amazing things, like 'the spaking hot war machine' that everyone except the Hephaestus cabin called "The Argo 2".

"Jason! Hey man, don't space out on me like that, it's creepy!",Leo said, bringing me back to the present.

"Sorry,Leo. I can't help thinking about what will happen when we get there",I said with a sad smile.

Leo grinnied again and shook his head,"Well we can't have you thinking about that now can we? You,sparky, need a distraction...",Leo tapped his chin thoughtfully.

Just then my sister Thalia (a Hunter of Artemis who was visiting the camp) came in runing with Rachel Dare,the camp Oracle.

"Jason",Thalia panted as she caught up with us, as if she had ran the entire camp to find us,"Help me get annabeth and some other people please! You guys won't believe what rachel found!",she said.

"I found it in an old library close to my school",Rachel explained,her eyes filled with excited.

She pulled her bag from her shoulders and pulled out a small dark-green book that showed a kid with black hair, an orange T-shirt, holding something that looked like a horn with his back turned. His feet were in water and he was staring at the Empire State Building.

**"The Lightning Thief",**I read.


	2. The First Chapter

**The HoO Crew Read The Lightning Thief;Chapter 2**

-**ANNABETH**-

After a regular breakfast and daily activities with my brothers and sisters, I went to my cabin and sat in my bed,thinking._Oh Seaweed Brain,I wish you were here..._

Just then, Jason Grace burst open throught the door and into the cabin with a look of excitement in his electric blue eyes and for a moment,I was startled, but I got over my shock and quickly asked,"Woa,Jason!What's going on?".

He smiled for a moment but then his grin and his excited expression slowly looked like something suddlenly occured to him and what he was going to say probably would be bad for me.

That instantly got me thinking about the person that was always on my mind."Is it about Percy?"I asked hesintantly,I had no idea of what to expect,specially when it came to my boyfriend.

Jason hesitated, but then said"Well,sort-off. Rachel found these books in a mortal library and guess who their about?".

I looked at him,puzzled. So jason had ran all the way here,looked soo excited but hesitant, just to tell me about a book Rachel found in a mortal library? I might be the daughter of Athena, but right now I was too worried about a certain son of Poseidon to think about any mortal book. But Jason interested in a mortal book? That was too strange, so I looked at him blankly the way Percy used to look at me when he didnt know something, and said "No I have no you tell me?"

Jason smiled at me and said,"Come and meet us in the Big House so you can see it,Leo is getting other people and then we are gonna read it aloud to the entire camp".

I shrugged and followed Jason out of the cabin and into the Big the ,Clarrise,Leo,Thalia,and Rachel were sitting down with big smiles in their faces holding some books in their hands.

"What's going on guys?",I asked when I entered the room Chiron looked up and smiled at me with a twinkle in his eyes."You shall find out soon child,let's all go down to the amplitheater to begin reading".

Everyone nodded but I was even more confused,what the heck was going on? But I decided to follow them out to the amplitheater to find out.

-Scene Change-

When we got to the amplitheater, I saw all the campers rounded up there with curious but confused looks on their faces,like me.

Chiron pounded his hooves on the ground to get their attention."HEROES!Gather around! Today we shall read some chapters from a special book our Oracle has brought us!",he said.

Connor and Travis Stoll walked in front with confused looks."You asked us to come here to read a silly book?",Connor asked.

"You know how we feel about books,Chiron!",said Travis,with a bored look on his face.

"When you know what the book is about Travis,then you might be more interested",Chiron said to the brothers.

Travis snorted,"That's what our teachers always say..."but they stayed quiet.

Chiron then continued,"While reading this book,our Oracle tells me we will have some visitors,but first I will tell you what this book is about".

Everyone leaned forward in anticipation.

"This book,is about one of this camp's lost hero,Percy Jackson",he said.

I looked at him with my mouth hanging open like everyone else.

_A book about percy? Theres no way...,_I thought.

"I will read the first chapter",Chiron announced.

"**I Accidentally Vaporize My Pre-Algebra Teacher",** Chiron read.

"Oh,Seaweed Brain"I said,smilling. Only percy would come up with a title like that.

"Nice title"Leo said,with a grin

"**Look,I didn't want to be a Half-blood",**chrion read

"Nice way to start a book percy",Will from Apollo said.

We all knew a half-blood's life was never easy.

**"If youre reading this because you think you might be one my advice is: close this book right now. Believe whatever lie your mom or dad told you about your birth,and try to lead a normal life.**

**Being a half-blood is dangerous. It's scary. Most of the time,it gets you killed in painfull,nasty ways."**

"So why are we reading this if Percy doesn't want half-bloods to read it?" Travis whispered to Chris Rodriguez

"Good advice from Percy?!Damn,he must have spent way too much time with Annabeth**" **Connor joked.

I punched his shoulder and told him to shut up.

"Jez Annabeth,I was joking" Connor said,rubbing his arm.

"**If you're a normal kid,reading this beacuse you think it's fiction,read on.I envy you for being able to believe that none of this ever happened.**

**But if you recognize yourself in these pages-If you feel something stirring up inside-stop reading might be one of us.**

"Real dramatic percy",said a kid from Ares.

"Ahhh, the FBI will be coming for us!" Leo and the Stollsas aid dramatically.

**And once you know that, it's only a matter of time before **_**they**_** sense it too,and they'll come for you.**

**Don't say I didn't warn you.**

"Well,you never warn me"said Nico Di Angelo,which surprised me because I didnt know he was here.

**My name is Percy Jackson.**

**I'm twelve years old,until a few days ago,I was a boarding student at Yancy Academy,a private school for troubled kids in upstate New York.**

"Ugh,I hate those schools" Connor said,wrinkling his nose.

"What type of schools DO you like?",Katie from Demeter asked him.

"Good point",he said.

"Was Percy a troubled kid?",Leo asked.

"YES!",everyone shouted, and then started laughing.

" You all think very highly of him" Piper said sarcastically.

"We do. He's got soo much seaweed in his brain,though" Thalia said with a smirk

She and Nico high-fived.

**Am I a troubled kid?**

**You could say that.**

"HAHAHA",The kids from the Ares cabin rolled over,laughing.

Even Chiron and I smiled at that.

**I could start at any point in my short miserable life to prove it,but things really started going bad last May,when our sixth-grade class took a field trip to Manhattan-twenty-eight mental-case kids and two teachers on a yellow bus,heading to the Metropolitan Museum of Art to look at ancient Greek and Roman stuff.**

"That sounds like fun",I said with a smile in my face.

Travis and Connor made a disgusted face."Torture",Leo and the entire Hermes cabin said.

**I know-it sounds like torture.**

"HAHAHA",Leo and the Hermes cabin laughed.

"Why do you even go out with him?"Thalia asked me with a small smile in her face.

I rolled my eyes at her but I smiled too.

**Most Yancy field trips were.**** But Mr. Brunner, our Latin teacher, was leading this trip, so I had hopes.**

Everyon look at Chiron,who was smilling.

**Mr. Brunner was this middle-aged guy in a motorized wheelchair. He had thinning hair and a scruffy beard and a frayed tweed jacket, which always smelled like coffee.**

"CHIRON!"We all yelled. Chiron smiled wider but his eyes were a little sad.

**You wouldn't think he'd be cool, but he told stories and jokes and let us play games in class and also had this awesome collection of Roman armor and weapons,so he was the only teacher whose class didn't put me to sleep.**

"Greek weapons,Percy"Grover said,shaking his head.

"He really Did like my class"Chiron said wipping a small tear in his eyes.

"Who wouldn't love a class where the teacher has cool weapons?"Leo asked.

** I hoped the trip would be okay. At least, I hoped that for once I wouldn't get in trouble.**

"And why would you EVER get in trouble Percy?",Travis joked.

I looked at Katie and she nodded. Then she hit Travis in the head and he got quiet.

**Boy,was I wrong.**

**See,bad things happen to me on field at my fifth-grade school,when we went to the Saratoga battlefield,I had this accident with a Revolutionary War cannon.**

Leo,Connor,Travis,the Hermes and Apollo cabin were all holding their sides,laughing.

"And accident with a war cannon Perce?",Will said.

"Only percy",Connor said,wipping tears of laughter from his eyes.

"What happened with the cannon,though?Keep reading Chiron!",Travis said with anticipation in his eyes.

They all leaned forward and kept quiet.

**I wasn't aiming for the school bus,but of course I got expelled anyway.**

"BWAHAHAHAH",They all exploded in laughter. Even the Ares kids were laughing too.

**And before that,at my fourth-grade school,when we took a behind-the-scenes tour of the Marine World shark pool,I sort of hit the wrong lever on the catwalk and our an unplanned swim. **

**And before that..Well you get the idea.**

**"**Aww,c'mon Perce!Keep going!",the Hermes cabin said before they realizied they were talking to a book.

"When Percy comes back,he is soo gonna tell us about this",Connor told Travis,who nodded eagerly.

**This trip,I was determined to be good.**

**All the way to the city,I put up with Nancy Bobofit, the freckly,redheaded kleptomaniac girl,hitting my best friend Grover in the back with chunks of peanut butter-and-ketchup sandwich.**

Everyone started talking at once.

"What kind of last name is Bobofit?!"

"EWWW!Who eats peanut butter and ketchup sandwiches?!"

"She was hitting goat boy with it? Oh it just got real!"

"HEROES!",Chiron had to shout to get us to shut up and pay attention.

**Grover was an easy target. He was cried when he got must've been held back several grades, because he was the only sixth-grader with acne and the start of a wispy his chin and top of all that, he was crippled.**

**He walked funny, like every step hurt him, but don't let that fool you. You should've seen him run when it was enchilada day in the cafeteria.**

"Way to blow your cover,Goat-Boy",Thalia said laughing.

"Thanks a lot Perce",Grover said shaking his head.

"You must really like Enchiladas then Grover",Piper said laughing as well.

**Anyway, Nancy Bobofit was throwing wads of sandwich that stuck in his curly brown hair, and she knew I couldn't do anything back to her because I was already on probation.**** The headmaster had threatened me with death by in-school suspension if anything bad, embarrassing, or even mildly entertaining happened on this trip.**

"And that is why,children of Hermes,we hate schools and their snobby principals",Travis said to the Hermes kids as if he was teaching them something important.

They all cracked up and nodded their heads with mock serious expressions.

**"I'm going to kill her",I mumbled.**

"DO IT!",an Ares kid said.

**Grover tried to calm me down."It's okay.I like peanut butter"**

**He dogded another piece of Nancy's lunch.**

"Of course you do,goat boy"Thalia said sarcasticlly**.**

**"**I was trying to calm him",Grover said.

Before they could start arguing,Chiron kept on.

**"That's it".I started to get up,but Grover pulled me back to my seat.**

**"You're already on probation",he reminded me."You know who'll get blamed if anything happens."**

**Looking back on it,I wish I'd decked Nancy Bobofit right then and -school suspencion would've been nothing compared to the mess I was about to get myself into.**

"He would have decked a girl?!"Piper asked with an outraged look on her face.

"No he wouldn't",Grover said confidently.

"I wonder what mess could have been worse than In-school suspencion",Leo said with a shudder.

"Um let me think... How about a little mess I like to call The life of a big three demigod?",Jason said with sadness and sarcasm in his voice.

The camp fell silent.

**Mr. Brunner led the museum tour.**

**He rode up front in his wheelchair, guiding us through the big echoey galleries, past marble statues and glass cases full of really old black-and-orange pottery.**

**It blew my mind that this stuff had survived for two thousand, three thousand years.**

"Longer,Percy",I said,shaking my head. The fact that those artifacts survived so long surprised me too.

**He gathered us around a thirteen-foot-tall stone column with a big sphinx on the top, and started telling us how it was a grave marker, a **_**stele**_**, for a girl about our age. He told us about the carvings on the sides. I was trying to listen to what he had to say, because it was kind of interesting, but everybody around me was talking, and every time I told them to shut up, the other teacher chaperone, Mrs. Dodds, would give me the evil eye.**

**Mrs. Dodds was this little math teacher from Georgia who always wore a black leather jacket, even though she was fifty years old.**

"Sounds like a creepy old hag" Jason said with a shudder.

"Nervous breakdown my ass,it was probably Alecto who caused it" Nico said with a disgusted look on his face.

"Who?"Leo asked.

"You'll find out"Thalia said seriously.

**From her first day, loved Nancy Bobofit and figured I was devil spawn.**

"NO!That's nico!",Thalia said with a smile in her face.

Nico huffed indignantly.

**She would point her crooked finger at me and say,"Now honey",real sweet, and I knew I was going to get after-school detention for a month.**

Travis and Connor shuddered.

**One time, after she'd made me erase answers out of old math workbooks until midnight, I told Grover I didn't think Mrs. Dodds was human. He looked at me, real serious, and said, "You're absolutely right."**

**"**Blowing your cover too much Grover",I said and face-palmed.

**Mr. Brunner kept talking about Greek funeral art.**

**Finally, Nancy Bobofit snickered something about the naked guy on the stele, and I turned around and said, "Will you **_**shut up?**_**"**

"Oh!It's about to get real!",an Ares kid said.

**It came out louder than I meant it too.**

"Of course it did,kelp head",Thalia said with a smirk.

"What was Percy's nickname for you again?...Oh yeah!Pinecone Face!" Clarisse said.

Thalia glared at clarrise and Jason asked,"Percy called you Pinecone Face?" He sounded surprised.

"Let's talk about that later please",Piper asked with some charmspeak in her voice. Thw campers all fell silent again.

**The whole group laughed. Mr. Brunner stopped his story.**

"**Mr. Jackson," he said, "did you have a comment?"**

**My face was totally red. I said, "No, sir."**

"I feel you dude",Leo said nodding.

**Mr. Brunner pointed to one of the pictures on the stele. "Perhaps you'll tell us what this picture represents?"**

"Five drachma he gets it wrong"Thalia said,looking at me.

"It's on",I said doubtfully.

**I looked at the carving and felt a flush of relief because I actually recognized it."That's Kronos eating his kids right?"**

Thalia grumbled and handed me five drachmas.

Katie shuddered."It just had to be that one"

**"Yes", said,obliviously not satisfied."And he did this because..."**

**"Well...",I racked my brain to remember."Kronos was the king god,and-"**

"GOD?!",Everyone at camp shouted,then they burst out laughing.

**"God?", asked.**

**"Titan",I corrected myself."And ...he didn't trust his kids,who were the ,um,Kronos ate them,right? But his wife hid baby Zeus, and gave Kronos a rock to eat later,when Zeus grew up, he tricked his dad into barfing up his brothers and sisters-"**

**"Eww!",said one of the girls behind me.**

**"-and so there was a big fight between the gods and the titans, and the gods won",I said.**

"Nicely put Percy",an Athena kid said.

**Some snickers from the group.**

**"**But he got it right!",Jason said.

**Behind me,Nancy Bobofit mumbled to a friend, "Like we're going to use this in real life. Like it's going to say on our job applications, 'Please explain why Kronos ate his kids.'"**

"Maybe not for her,but for demigods...",Chris said.

"Still it wouldn't show up in a job application",Travis whispered.

**"And why, Mr. Jackson," Brunner said, "to paraphrase Miss Bobofit's excellent question, does this matter in real life?"**

"Duh,cuz hes a Half-blood,Chiron!",a Hermes kid said.

"BUSTED!",Leo and The stolls said.

**"Busted," Grover muttered.**

"Now were thinking like grover",Travis said.

**"Shut up," Nancy hissed, her face even brighter red than her hair.**

**At least Nancy got packed, too. Mr. Brunner was the only one who ever caught her saying anything wrong. He had radar ears.**

"Ears of a horse",The stolls said.

"I heard that",Chiron said.

"You see?",They whispered to leo.

**I thought about his question, and shrugged. "I don't know, sir."**

**"I see." Mr. Brunner looked disappointed. "Well, half credit, Mr. Jackson. Zeus did indeed feed Kronos a mixture of mustard and wine, which made him disgorge his other five children, who, of course, being immortal gods, had been living and growing up completely undigested in the Titan's stomach.**

**The gods defeated their father, sliced him to pieces with his own scythe, and scattered his remains in Tartarus, the darkest part of the Underworld. On that happy note, it's time for lunch. Mrs. Dodds, would you lead us back outside?"**

**The class drifted off, the girls holding their stomachs, the guys pushing each other around and acting like doofuses.**

**"**When don't they?",Thalia said.

"Hey!",The guys of camp half blood said.

**Grover and I were about to follow when Mr. Brunner said, "Mr. Jackson."**

**I knew that was coming.I told Grover to keep going. Then I turned toward Mr. Brunner. "Sir?"Mr. Brunner had this look that wouldn't let you go— intense brown eyes that could've been a thousand years old and had seen everything**.

"Because they have",Thalia said looking at Chiron.

Chiron nodded sadly.

**"You must learn the answer to my question," Mr. Brunner told me.**

**"About the Titans?"**

**"About real life. And how your studies apply to it."**

**"**Poor Percy,he probably didn't know what he was going to find out",Travis said sadly.

Everyone stared at him in shock.

"What?!I can be deep and serious when I want to!",He said.

**"Oh."**

**"What you learn from me," he said, "is vitally important. I expect you to treat it as such. I will accept only the best from you, Percy Jackson."**

**I wanted to get angry, this guy pushed me so hard.**

**"**None of us can stay angry at Chiron",I said.

**I mean, sure, it was kind of cool on tournament days, when he dressed up in a suit of Roman armor and shouted: "What ho!' and challenged us, sword-point against chalk, to run to the board and name every Greek and Roman person who had everlived,and their mother, and what god they worshipped.**

**"**COOL!I wish I had a class like that!",Connor and Leo said together.

**But Mr. Brunner expected me to be as good as everybody else, despite the fact that I have dyslexia and attention deficit disorder and I had never made above a C— in my life. No—he didn't expect me to beas good;he expected me to I just couldn't learn all those names and facts, much less spell them correctly.**

**"**I always knew he was special",Chiron said with a small smile.

**I mumbled something about trying harder, while Mr. Brunner took one long sad look at the stele, like he'd been at this girl's funeral.**

"Which I bet was true" Clarisse said,shrugged.

**He told me to go outside and eat my class gathered on the front steps of the museum, where we could watch the foot traffic along Fifth Avenue.**

**Overhead, a huge storm was brewing, with clouds blacker than I'd ever seen over the city. I figured maybe it was global warming or something, because the weather all across New York State had been weird since Christmas.**

"What's Dad angry about?" Jason asked Thalia.

"We'll find out later"she assured him.

**We'd had massive snow storms, flooding, wildfires from lightning strikes. I wouldn't have been surprised if this was a hurricane blowing in.**

"Looks like Poseidon is angry too"Piper noted.

**Nobody else seemed to notice. Some of the guys were pelting pigeons with Lunchables crackers. Nancy Bobofit was trying to pickpocket something from a lady's purse, and, of course, Mrs. Dodds wasn't seeing a thing.**

"I hate her already",Thalia mumbled quietly,but I heard,"Nobody messes with Goat boy but me".

**Grover and I sat on the edge of the fountain, away from the others. We thought that maybe if we did that, everybody wouldn't know we were from that school—the school for loser freaks who couldn't make it elsewhere.**

"Smart",Leo said approvingly.

**Detention?" Grover asked.**

**"Nah," I said. "Not from Brunner. I just wish he'd lay off me sometimes. I mean—I'm not a genius."**

**"**And that's what Annbeth loves about him",Travis said,wrigglying his eyebrows at me.

I blushed and said,"Not true".

**"**Yeah!She loves him because he's not perfect!",Thalia said. I gave her a gratefull look.

**Grover didn't say anything for a while. Then, when I thought he was going to give me some deep philosophical comment to make me feel better, he said, "Can I have your apple?"**

"Really deep there ",Thalia said to Grover. He blushed while the camp roared with laughter.

**I didn't have much of an appetite, so I let him take it.**

**I watched the stream of cabs going down Fifth Avenue, and thought about my mom's apartment, only a little ways uptown from where we sat. I hadn't seen her since Christmas. I wanted so bad to jump in a taxi and head home. She'd hug me and be glad to see me, but she'd be disappointed, too. She'd send me right back to Yancy, remind me that I had to try harder, even if this was my sixth school in six years and I was probably going to be kicked out again. I wouldn't be able to stand that sad look she'd give me.**

**"**AWW!",The Aphrodite cabin said.

**Mr. Brunner parked his wheelchair at the base of the handicapped ramp. He ate celery while he read a paperback novel. A red umbrella stuck up from the back of his chair, making it look like a motorized cafe table.**

**I was about to unwrap my sandwich when Nancy Bobofit appeared in front of me with her ugly friends—I guess she'd gotten tired of stealing from the tourists—and dumped her half-eaten lunch in Grover's lap.**

"Im gonna hunt her down",Thalia said with a serious look

"And I'll help",I said.

"She's gonna get it",Rachel said.

**"Oops." She grinned at me with her crooked teeth**

"You know it would be hilarious if Bobadafit-",Connor started to say.

"Bobadafit?",I asked,laughing.

"Nickname for Percy's old friend",He said with a mischivious smile,"Wouldn't be hillarious if she had a crush on our dear Percy?".

Everyone was holding their sides with laughter.

Annabeth looked pissed.

**Her freckles were orange, as if somebody had spray-painted her face with liquid Cheetos.**

**"**Ugh",Said the kids from Aphrodite,even piper."That's disgusting".

Connor and Travis were whezzing now.

"Only percy would make a joke like that!",they both said between laughs.

"Man,I should take lessons from this guy!",Leo said.

Jason huffed.

**I tried to stay cool. The school counselor had told me a million times, "Count to ten, get control of your temper." But I was so mad my mind went blank. A wave roared in my ears.**

"A wave?"Jason asked in wonder.

"Son of Poseidon"I reminded him.

"Oh"

**I don't remember touching her, but the next thing I knew, Nancy was sitting on her butt in the fountain, screaming, "Percy pushed me!"**

"YOU GOT TOLD!",Leo and the entire Hermes cabin shouted

**Mrs. Dodds materialized next to us.**

**Some of the kids were whispering: "Did you see—"**

**"—the water—"**

**"—like it grabbed her—"**

**"**Way to go,Kelp head!",Thalia said,pupming her fist.

"COOL!"Leo yelled.

**I didn't know what they were talking about. All I knew was that I was in trouble again.**

**As soon as Mrs. Dodds was sure poor little Nancy was okay, promising to get her a new shirt at the museum gift shop, etc., etc., Mrs. Dodds turned on me. There was a triumphant fire in her eyes, as if I'd done something she'd been waiting for all semester. "Now, honey—"**

**"I know," I grumbled. "A month erasing workbooks."**

"NO!",The entire Hermes and Ares cabin shouted,scaring the rest of the camp.

"What?!",I asked them.

"You NEVER-"

"Guess your punishment",said a twenty year-old man with salt-and-peper curly hair from the chair next to Chiron.

We all stared at him in shock.

"DAD!",The Hermes kids yelled in surprise.

"Hello Hermes",Chiron said calmly,as if gods always appeared next to him.

"Please keep reading",Hermes said.

We were wondering why Hermes was here. Wasnt Olympus closed down?

**That wasn't the right thing to say.**

"You see?",both Hermes and his kids said.

**"Come with me," Mrs. Dodds said.**

**"Wait!" Grover yelped. "It was me.I pushed her."**

"Brave goat",Nico said

**I stared at him, stunned. I couldn't believe he was trying to cover for me. Mrs. Dodds scared Grover to death.**

**"**And she should",Nico nodded.

**She glared at him so hard his whiskery chin trembled.**

**"I don't think so, Mr. Underwood," she said.**

**"But—"**

**"You—will—stay—here."**

**Grover looked at me desperately.**

**"It's okay, man," I told him. "Thanks for trying."**

**"Honey," Mrs. Dodds barked at me. "Now."**

**Nancy Bobofit smirked.**

**I gave her my deluxe I'll-kill-you-later stare.**

Everyone who had seen that stare shuddered.

**Then I turned to face Mrs. Dodds, but she wasn't there. She was standing at the museum entrance, way at the top of the steps, gesturing impatiently at me to come on.**

**How'd she get there so fast?**

"I bet he's going to think he's hallucinating",Rachel said.

**I have moments like that a lot, when my brain falls asleep or something, and the next thing I know I've missed something, as if a puzzle piece fell out of the universe and left me staring at the blank place behind it. The school counselor told me this was part of the ADHD, my brain misinterpreting things**.

"Don't think It's the ADHD this time",Leo said

**I wasn't so sure.I went after Mrs. Dodds.**

**Halfway up the steps, I glanced back at Grover. He was looking pale, cutting his eyes between me and Mr. Brunner, like he wanted Mr. Brunner to notice what was going on, but Mr. Brunner was absorbed in his novel.**

"Defenitely Chiron",Clarisse said.

**I looked back up. Mrs. Dodds had disappeared again. She was now inside the building, at the end of the entrance , I thought. She's going to make me buy a new shirt for Nancy at the gift apparently that wasn't the plan.**

**I followed her deeper into the museum. When I finally caught up to her, we were back in the Greek and Roman for us, the gallery was empty.**

**Mrs. Dodds stood with her arms crossed in front of a big marble frieze of the Greek gods. She was making this weird noise in her throat, like growling.**

"Uh..Growling?",Leo asked nervously.

**Even without the noise, I would've been nervous. It's weird being alone with a teacher, especially Mrs. Dodds. Something about the way she looked at the frieze, as if she wanted to pulverize it...**

**"You've been giving us problems, honey," she said.I did the safe thing. I said, "Yes, ma'am."**

**She tugged on the cuffs of her leather jacket. "Did you really think you would get away with it?"The look in her eyes was beyond mad. It was evil.**

The camp was silent.

**She's a teacher, I thought nervously. It's not like she's going to hurt me.I said, "I'll—I'll try harder, ma'am."**

**Thunder shook the building.**

"What IS Dad mad about?",Jason asked but no one answered

**"We are not fools, Percy Jackson," Mrs. Dodds said. "It was only a matter of time before we found you out. Confess, and you will suffer less pain."**

**"**Like that's a good option",Someone from the Hephaestus cabin mumbled.

**I didn't know what she was talking about.**

**All I could think of was that the teachers must've found the illegal stash of candy I'd been selling out of my dorm room. Or maybe they'd realized I got my essay onTom Sawyerfrom the Internet without ever reading the book and now they were going to take away my grade. Or worse, they were going to make me read the book.**

**"**HAHAHAHAHA",The Herme,Hephaestus,and Ares kids roared with laughter.

"Good one Percy!"Leo said.

"Smart move",Hermes nodded.

"It is a good book",I said shaking my head at my boyfriend.

**"Well?" she demanded.**

**"Ma'am, I don't..."**

**"Your time is up," she hissed.**

**Then the weirdest thing happened. Her eyes began to glow like barbecue coals. Her fingers stretched, turning into talons. Her jacket melted into large, leathery wings. She wasn't human. She was a shriveled hag with bat wings and claws and a mouth full of yellow fangs, and she was about to slice me to ribbons.**

"A FURY!HE FOUGHT A FURY?!",Jason and some new campers asked in shock.

"Yes",I said calmly but I was worried too.

**Then things got even stranger.**

"How is that possible?",Piper entire camp held its breath

**Mr. Brunner, who'd been out in front of the museum a minute before, wheeled his chair into the doorway of the gallery, holding a pen in his hand.**

**"What ho, Percy!" he shouted, and tossed the pen through the air.**

**"**What ho? Really chrion?"Leo,Piper, and Jason and I asked.

Chiron shrugged."He would remeber that from class" He explained.

**Mrs. Dodds lunged at me.**

The campers leaned foward in anticipation.

**With a yelp, I dodged and felt talons slash the air next to my ear. I snatched the ballpoint pen out of the air, but when it hit my hand, it wasn't a pen anymore. It was a sword—Mr. Brunner's bronze sword, which he always used on tournament day.**

"That...Is...EPIC!",Leo and Everyone shouted.

"You used Riptide in a class full of mortals?",I asked chiron shrugged.

**Mrs. Dodds spun toward me with a murderous look in her eyes.**

**My knees were jelly. My hands were shaking so bad I almost dropped the sword.**

**She snarled, "Die, honey!"**

"She can't drop the honey thing?",Leo asked.

**And she flew straight at me.**

**Absolute terror ran through my body. I did the only thing that came naturally: I swung the sword.**

"Yes because that's natural for everyone," Jason and Piper said, sarcasticly.

**The metal blade hit her shoulder and passed clean through her body as if she were made of ! Mrs. Dodds was a sand castle in a power fan. She exploded into yellow powder, vaporized on the spot, leaving nothing but the smell of sulfur and a dying screech and a chill of evil in the air, as if those two glowing red eyes were still watching me.**

**I was alone.**

The camp was soo awed nobody spoke.

"DAMN! He is a BEAST!" Leo said.

**There was a ballpoint pen in my hand. Mr. Brunner wasn't there. Nobody was there but me.**

**My hands were still trembling. My lunch must've been contaminated with magic mushrooms or something.**

"Magic Mushrooms?",Grover,Thalia and I asked**.**

**"**Nice Perce",Travis and Connor snickered

"He killed a fury,without experience,on his first try?",Jason asked,completely shocked.

"Well,Percy is a special guy",I said with pride in my voice.

**Had I imagined the whole thing?**

"Sadly,No Seaweed Brain",Thalia said.

**I went back had started to rain.**

**Grover was sitting by the fountain, a museum map tented over his head. Nancy Bobofit was still standing there, soaked from her swim in the fountain, grumbling to her ugly friends. When she saw me, she said, "I hope Mrs. Kerr whipped your butt."**

**I said, "Who?"**

**"Our teacher. Duh!"**

**I blinked. We had no teacher named Mrs. Kerr. I asked Nancy what she was talking about.**

**She just rolled her eyes and turned away.**

**I asked Grover where Mrs. Dodds was.**

**He said, "Who?" But he paused first, and he wouldn't look at me, so I thought he was messing with me.**

**"**You ARE a terrible liar",Rachel said with a smile.

"I know",Grover said sadly.

"You,my good satyr friend need some lying lessons from the camp experts",Travis said pointing at himself and Connor, who nodded his approval.

"I'll think about that",Grover said.

**"Not funny, man," I told him. "This is serious."**

**Thunder boomed overhead.**

Jason looked again at Thalia,but she shook her head.

**I saw Mr. Brunner sitting under his red umbrella, reading his book, as if he'd never moved.**

**I went over to him.**

**He looked up, a little distracted. "Ah, that would be my pen. Please bring your own writing utensil in the future, Mr. Jackson.**

"Yeah bring pensils to a field trip,chiron" Clarisse said

I could have sworn chiron blushed a bit.

**I handed Mr. Brunner his pen. I hadn't even realized I was still holding it.**

**"Sir," I said, "where's Mrs. Dodds?"**

**He stared at me blankly. "Who?"**

"See grover?Even Chiron can lie!",Connor said.

**"The other chaperone. Mrs. Dodds. The pre-algebra teacher."**

**He frowned and sat forward, looking mildly concerned. "Percy, there is no Mrs. Dodds on this trip. As far as I know, there has never been a Mrs. Dodds at Yancy Academy. Are you feeling all right?"**

"No,I dont think he's ok,cuz he had some magic mushrooms for lunch",Leo joked and everyone chuckled.

"Next chapter. Who will read next?",Chiron asked.

"I will",Thalia said and took the book.

**"Three Old Ladies Knit the Socks of Death"**,she read.


	3. The Dream Begins

**The HoO Read The Lightning Thief;Chapter 3**

**-Leo-**

**(A/N; So chapter 3!Thank you to all the people who read and reviewed the story!You guys are awesome!:)**

Leo was completely had heard some stories about Annabeth's boyfriend Percy,but they had only been half of the other things he heard were too crazy and imposible to believe.I mean, a twelve year old with no experience at all,defeating the Minatour? Fat chance.

But if the guy could kill a Fury,filled with panic,not knowing what the hell was going on,and with no experience at all,Leo had to give the dude some credit.

**"Three Old Ladies Knit the Socks of Death," **Thalia read**.**

Everyone who knew Percy and his story shuddered.

_The Fates?!_,Leo thought,horrified.

"The socks of death,Really Percy?",said Travis shaking his head and laughing.

"Shut up,I want to hear this!",Katie said angrily.

**I was used to the occasional weird experience, but usually they were over quickly.**

**This twenty-four/seven hallucination was more than I could handle. For the rest of the school year, the entire campus seemed to be playing some kind of trick on me. The students acted as if they were completely and totally convinced that Mrs. Kerr—a perky blond woman whom I'd never seen in my life until she got on our bus at the end of the field trip—had been our pre-algebra teacher since Christmas.**

**"**That must ahve been annoying",Leo said

"What would?",Drew form Aphrodite asked.

"When kids pretend something didn't happen even though it did",Leo said.

"Probably the mist messing with them",Piper said.

"Still annoying",Leo said.

**Every so often I would spring a Mrs. Dodds reference on somebody, just to see if I could trip them up, but they would stare at me like I was psycho.**

All of Percy's friends laughed at that,even Annabeth.

"That's cuz you are,Kelp Head",Thalia said smirking.

"You two have interesting names for each other",Jason noted.

Thalia just shrugged and gestured for Piper to keep reading.

**It got so I almost believed them—Mrs. Dodds had never existed.**

**Almost.**

"Ten drachmas it's Grover",I said to Travis and Connor.

"You're on Fire Boy!",They said with grins.

**But Grover couldn't fool me.**

The Stolls pulled out ten drachma,cursing while the rest of the campers laughed.

"That satyr really needs to learn how to lie",Hermes said quietly to Chiron.

**When I mentioned the name Dodds to him, he would hesitate, and then claim she didn't exist. But I knew he was lying.**

**Something was going on. Something had happened at the museum.**

"He's a bit slow",Piper said smiling slightly at ,Grover,Nico, and Annabeth laughed.

"Give the dude some credit,he didn't know half of what was going on",Jason said.

**I didn't have much time to think about it during the days, but at night, visions of Mrs. Dodds with talons and leathery wings would wake me up in a cold sweat**

"We feel you dude",I said shuddering,"We all remeber our first monster".

All demi-gods shivered.

**The freak weather continued, which didn't help my mood. One night, a thunderstorm blew out the windows in my dorm room. A few days later, the biggest tornado ever spotted in the Hudson Valley touched down only fifty miles from Yancy Academy. One of the current events we studied in social studies class was the unusual number of small planes that had gone down in sudden squalls in the Atlantic that year.**

"The gods must've been pissed",Leo said.

Some kids cracked up at that.

**I started feeling cranky and irritable most of the time. My grades slipped from Ds to Fs.**

"Poor Percy",Leo and The Stolls said.

"He should try harder",Annabeth said.

"Annabeth,we can't all be brainiacs like you Athena kids",Clarisse said,rolling her eyes.

**I got into more fights with Nancy Bobofit and her friends. I was sent out into the hallway in almost every class.**

**Finally, when our English teacher, Mr. Nicoll, asked me for the millionth time why I was too lazy to study for spelling tests, I snapped. I called him an old sot. I wasn't even sure what it meant, but it sounded good.**

All the Athena kids bursted out laughing,which startled and surprised us.

"What's so funny?",Jason asked,confused.

"Sot means drunk",One of annabeth's brothers explained.

We all bursted out laughing too.

**The headmaster sent my mom a letter the following week, making it official: I would not be invited back next year to Yancy Academy.**

**Fine, I told myself. Just fine.**

**I was homesick.**

"Homesick?",Jason asked.

"Probably missed him mom",Thalia said.

Jason and I started to snicker.

"His mom's the best",All the people that had met Sally Jackson said.

**I wanted to be with my mom in our little apartment on the Upper East Side, even if I had to go to public school and put up with my obnoxious stepfather and his stupid poker parties.**

"Paul plays Poker?",Rachel asked,surprised,"And I thought Percy liked paul".

"This was the one before Paul,Rachel",Grover explained with a disgusted look.

"Gabe?",Annabeth asked,curiously,"Percy never talks about him".

"Probably because Percy hated the guy",Grover said.

**And yet... there were things I'd miss at Yancy. The view of the woods outside my dorm window, the Hudson River in the distance, the smell of pine trees. I'd miss Grover, who'd been a good friend,**

"Thanks Perce",Grover said smiling.

**even if he was a little strange**

"Hey!",Grover protested.

Everyone else laughed.

"He forgot to mention that Grover was enchilada-obssesed too!",Connor said laughing.

Grover blushed.

**I worried how he'd survive next year without me.**

"Yeah,how will he surive?",Travis asked dramatically.

"The enchiladas will keep him company",Connor said,laughing.

**I'd miss Latin class, too—Mr. Brunner's crazy tournament days and his faith that I could do well.**

"That's sweet",Annabeth and Piper said with a small smile.

**As exam week got closer, Latin was the only test I studied for.**

"At least he tried",Thalia and Annabeth said together.

**I hadn't forgotten what Mr. Brunner had told me about this subject being life-and-death for me. I wasn't sure why, but I'd started to believe him.**

"Probably cuz of Alecto",Nico said nodding

**The evening before my final, I got so frustrated I threw theCambridge Guide to Greek Mythologyacross my dorm room. Words had started swimming off the page, circling my head, the letters doing one-eighties as if they were riding skateboards. There was no way I was going to remember the difference between Chiron and Charon, or Polydictes and Polydeuces. And conjugating those Latin verbs? Forget it.**

"Pretty easy",Jason said,"For Romans,specially".

"He knows the difference now,though",Annabeth said sadly.

"Wow,What do you mean he knows the difference now?",Leo asked her.

"We went to the underworld,met Charon,he obiously knows Chiron",Annabeth explained.

The people who hadn't known her and Percy's stories gaped at her in awe.

"Annabeth?",Piper asked.

"Yeah?",Annabeth replied.

"How are you even alive?",Piper asked in awe.

"We got lucky",She replied,shrugging.

**I paced the room, feeling like ants were crawling around inside my shirt.**

**I remembered Mr. Brunner's serious expression, his thousand-year-old eyes.**

_**I will accept only the best from you, Percy Jackson.**_

**I took a deep breath. I picked up the mythology book.**

**I'd never asked a teacher for help before. Maybe if I talked to Mr. Brunner, he could give me some pointers. At least I could apologize for the big fat F I was about to score on his exam. I didn't want to leave Yancy Academy with him thinking I hadn't tried.**

"Aww,percy wants to impress Chiron",Rachel said teasingly.

"And he has",Chiron said fondly.

It made Leo wonder if maybe,one day, someone would talk about him in that tone.

**I walked downstairs to the faculty offices. Most of them were dark and empty, but Mr. Brunner's door was ajar, light from his window stretching across the hallway floor.**

**I was three steps from the door handle when I heard voices inside the office. Mr. Brunner asked a question. A voice that was definitely Grover's said,**

**"... worried about Percy, sir."**

**I froze.**

**I'm not usually an eavesdropper,**

Annabeth,Rachel,Thalia, and the stolls snorted.

"He eavesdrops all the time",Thalia and Rachel said.

"Only on important conversations",Annabeth pointed out.

"If Percy's not an eavesdropper,then I'm a satyr",Travis said.

The campers laughed at that.

**but I dare you to try not listening if you hear your best friend talking about you to an adult.**

"Good point",Nico and Connor said.

**I inched closer.**

**"... alone this summer," Grover was saying. "I mean, a Kindly One in theschool! Now that we know for sure, andtheyknow too—"**

**"We would only make matters worse by rushing him," Mr. Brunner said. "We need the boy to mature more."**

**"But he may not have time. The summer solstice dead line—"**

**"Will have to be resolved without him, Grover. Let him enjoy his ignorance while he still can."**

"Summer Solstice deadline?",Jason,Piper,and Leo asked (They had been on a quest with a solstice deadline)

"You'll find out later",Thalia said.

"I wonder if we could have solved that without Percy?",Grover said thoughtfully.

"Probably not",Annabeth said.

**"Sir, he saw her..."**

**"His imagination," Mr. Brunner insisted. "The Mist over the students and staff will be enough to convince him of that."**

**"Sir, I ... I can't fail in my duties again." Grover's voice was choked with emotion. "You know what that would mean."**

**"**Again?",Piper and Jason asked.

Grover nodded sadly and Thalia patted his arm.

"Not your fault Goat-Boy",She said.

**"You haven't failed, Grover," Mr. Brunner said kindly. "I should have seen her for what she was. Now let's just worry about keeping Percy alive until next fall—"**

**The mythology book dropped out of my hand and hit the floor with a thud.**

"C'mon Percy!You can sneak around better than that!",Connor chided.

"He can now" Travis reminded him.

**Mr. Brunner went silent.**

**My heart hammering, I picked up the book and backed down the hall.**

**A shadow slid across the lighted glass of Brunner's office door, the shadow of something much taller than my wheelchair-bound teacher, holding something that looked suspiciously like an archer's bow.**

**I opened the nearest door and slipped inside.**

**"** You see young ones,when your about to get caught doing something,always find a hiding spot as fast as you can, follow what Uncle Percy just did" Travis said to the youngest Hermes kids while Hermes looked at his son with an amused smile.

"Uncle Percy?" Annabeth asked with a smile.

Travis and Connor looked at each other and shrugged.

**A few seconds later I heard a slowclop-clop-clop,like muffled wood blocks, then a sound like an animal snuffling right outside my door. A large, dark shape paused in front of the glass, and then moved on.**

**A bead of sweat trickled down my neck.**

**Somewhere in the hallway, Mr. Brunner spoke. "Nothing," he murmured. "My nerves haven't been right since the winter solstice."**

**"Mine neither," Grover said. "But I could have sworn ..."**

**"Go back to the dorm," Mr. Brunner told him. "You've got a long day of exams tomorrow."**

**"Don't remind me."**

"I've taken to many finals," Grover said.

**The lights went out in Mr. Brunner's office.**

**I waited in the dark for what seemed like forever.**

**Finally, I slipped out into the hallway and made my way back up to the dorm.**

**Grover was lying on his bed, studying his Latin exam notes like he'd been there all night.**

"You sneaky satyr. You can't lie but you can be sneaky",Leo said to Grover while Travis and Connor laughed.

**"Hey," he said, bleary-eyed. "You going to be ready for this test?"**

**I didn't answer.**

**"You look awful." He frowned. "Is everything okay?"**

**"Just... tired."**

**I turned so he couldn't read my expression, and started getting ready for bed.**

"Didn't work," Grover said, but Leo knew he was lying.

**I didn't understand what I'd heard downstairs. I wanted to believe I'd imagined the whole thing.**

**But one thing was clear: Grover and Mr. Brunner were talking about me behind my back. They thought I was in some kind of danger.**

"Yeah,cuz a Fury coming after you is not dangerous",Nico said.

Everyone but Chiron,Grover and Annabeth laughed.

**The next afternoon, as I was leaving the three-hour Latin exam,**

**"**THREE HOURS!",everyone except annabeth,jason and leo shouted.

"That's just wrong!",someone shouted.

"It should be illegal!",The stolls shouted.

"Plain Torture!",Leo said.

**my eyes swimming with all the Greek and Roman names I'd misspelled, Mr. Brunner called me back inside.**

"We feel ya,Perce",Will said and a lot of kids nodded.

**For a moment, I was worried he'd found out about my eavesdropping the night before, but that didn't seem to be the problem.**

**"Percy," he said. "Don't be discouraged about leaving Yancy. It's ... it's for the best."**

**His tone was kind, but the words still embarrassed me. Even though he was speaking quietly, the other kids finishing the test could hear. Nancy Bobofit smirked at me and made sarcastic little kissing motions with her lips.**

"Hate her",a bunch of kids said.

"Im gonna get her",Annabeth said.

"And I'll stop you from that",Chiron said.

**I mumbled, "Okay, sir."**

**"I mean ..." Mr. Brunner wheeled his chair back and forth, like he wasn't sure what to say. "This isn't the right place for you. It was only a matter of time."**

"Harsh,Chiron",Everyone said.

"I didn't mean to upset him",Chiron said sadly.

**My eyes stung.**

_Poor guy,_Leo thought.

**Here was my favorite teacher, in front of the class, telling me I couldn't handle it. After saying he believed in me all year, now he was telling me I was destined to get kicked out.**

"Damn,Chiron",Thalia said shaking her head.

"I was his favorite teacher?",Chiron asked with guilt in his eyes.

"Well,duh",Leo said and he blamed his ADHD for acting up,"You're the best teacher ever!".Many kids Chiron smiled kindly at them,"Thank you",he said.

**"Right," I said, trembling.**

**"No, no," Mr. Brunner said. "Oh, confound it all. What I'm trying to say ... you're not normal, Percy. That's nothing to be—"**

"But you could use a better way to explain this to people",Leo and Jason said.

Annabeth nodded,"You need help with that Chiron.

**"Thanks," I blurted. "Thanks a lot, sir, for reminding me."**

**"Percy—"**

**But I was already gone.**

**On the last day of the term, I shoved my clothes into my suitcase.**

**The other guys were joking around, talking about their vacation plans. One of them was going on a hiking trip to Switzerland. Another was cruising the Caribbean for a month. They were juvenile delinquents, like me, but they wererichjuvenile delinquents. Their daddies were executives, or ambassadors, or celebrities. I was a nobody, from a family of nobodies.**

"I wouldn't say nobodies," Leo said and Piper and Jason nodded with small smiles.

**They asked me what I'd be doing this summer and I told them I was going back to the city.**

"They seem OK",mitchell from Aphrodite said

**What I didn't tell them was that I'd have to get a summer job walking dogs or selling magazine subscriptions, and spend my free time worrying about where I'd go to school in the fall.**

**"Oh," one of the guys said. "That's cool."**

**They went back to their conversation as if I'd never existed.**

"I take that back",Mitchell said.

**The only person I dreaded saying good-bye to was Grover, but as it turned out, I didn't have to. He'd booked a ticket to Manhattan on the same Greyhound as I had, so there we were, together again, heading into the city.**

**During the whole bus ride, Grover kept glancing nervously down the aisle, watching the other passengers. It occurred to me that he'd always acted nervous and fidgety when we left Yancy, as if he expected something bad to happen.**

**"**Creepy alert!",Leo said.

"Thanks Leo",Grover said sarcasticly.

"Your welcome G-man",Leo said.

Grover looked at him strangely."What?",Leo asked.

"That's what Percy always calls me",Grover said sadly.

"You're wrong by the way Leo. It's not creepy alert. It's stalker alert" Connor said, trying to ease the tension.

Everyone laughed and Grover blushed again.

**Before, I'd always assumed he was worried about getting teased. But there was nobody to tease him on the Greyhound.**

**Finally I couldn't stand it anymore.**

**I said, "Looking for Kindly Ones?**

Everyone laughed at that and all the tension was gone. Leo thanked Percy for his sense of humor,because the camp fire was getting a bit tense.

"Bet he nearly gave you a heart attack",Annabeth laughed.

**Grover nearly jumped out of his seat. "Wha—what do you mean?"**

**I confessed about eavesdropping on him and Mr. Brunner the night before the exam.**

**Grover's eye twitched. "How much did you hear?"**

**"Oh ... not much. What's the summer solstice dead-line?"**

"Oh, nothing,just another day in your life where people will want to kill you," Grover said, everyone stared at him.

**He winced. "Look, Percy ... I was just worried for you, see? I mean, hallucinating about demon math teachers …"**

"To bad it wasn't a hallucination,"Piper and Jason said, grimly.

**"Grover—"**

**"And I was telling Mr. Brunner that maybe you were overstressed or something, because there was no such person as Mrs. Dodds, and ..."**

**"Grover, you're a really, really bad liar."**

Everyone laughed and nodded.

**His ears turned pink.**

**From his shirt pocket, he fished out a grubby business card. "Just take this, okay? In case you need me this summer.**

**The card was in fancy script, which was murder on my dyslexic eyes, but I finally made out something like:**

"Why is it in fancy script, anyways?" Rachel and Leo asked.

"Mr.D enjoys watching dyslexic demigods read it," Chiron said.

**Grover Underwood**

**Keeper**

**Half-Blood Hill**

**Long Island, New York**

**(800) 009-0009 **

**"What's Half—"**

**"Don't say it aloud!" he yelped. "That's my, um ... summer address."**

**My heart sank. Grover had a summer home. I'd never considered that his family might be as rich as the others at Yancy.**

**"Okay," I said glumly. "So, like, if I want to come visit your mansion."**

**He nodded. "Or...or if you need me."**

**"Why would I need you?"**

"OHHH",The Hermes kids yelled.

"Harsh,Pecy",Thalia said.

**It came out harsher than I meant it to.**

"Good",Thalia said,"At least he didn't mean to be rude."

**Grover blushed right down to his Adam's apple. "Look, Percy, the truth is, I—I kind of have to protect you."**

**I stared at him.**

**All year long, I'd gotten in fights, keeping bullies away from him. I'd lost sleep worrying that he'd get beaten up next year without me. And here he was acting like he was the one who defended me.**

"Thanks Perce," Grover said. "I didn't know he lost sleep for me" he said with a small sad smile.

**"Grover," I said, "What exactly are you protecting me from?"**

**There was a huge grinding noise under our feet. Black smoke poured from the dashboard and the whole bus filled with a smell like rotten eggs.**

"Ominous," Piper said.

"Creepy",Leo said

"Rotten Eggs",Travis and Connor said in disgust

**The driver cursed and steered the Greyhound over to the side of the highway.**

**After a few minutes clanking around in the engine compartment, the driver announced that we'd all have to get off. Grover and I filed outside with everybody else.**

**"**Why do I have this bad feeling that this wasn't a coincidence?",Travis and Leo asked.

"Because it isn't,duh!",Thalia said, and rolled her eyes at us.

**We were on a stretch of country road—no place you'd notice if you didn't break down there. On our side of the highway was nothing but maple trees and litter from passing cars. On the other side, across four lanes of asphalt shimmering with afternoon heat, was an old-fashioned fruit stand.**

**The stuff on sale looked really good: heaping boxes of blood red cherries and apples, walnuts and apricots, jugs of cider in a claw-foot tub full of were no customers, just three old ladies sitting in rocking chairs in the shade of a maple tree, knitting the biggest pair of socks I'd ever seen.**

"Oh Styx!",Piper said.

"What is it?",Jason asked.

"I know who the old ladies are now",She said.

" Well I guessEd it from the beginning, Beauty queen" Leo bragged.

Piper justrolled her eyes.

**I mean these socks were the size of sweaters, but they were clearly socks. The lady on the right knitted one of them. The lady on the left knitted the other. The lady in the middle held an enormous basket of electric-blue yarn.**

**All three women looked ancient, with pale faces wrinkled like fruit leather, silver hair tied back in white bandannas, bony arms sticking out of bleached cotton dresses.**

**The weirdest thing was, they seemed to be looking right at me.**

All the campers gasped.

**I looked over at Grover to say something about this and saw that the blood had drained from his face. His nose was twitching.**

**"Grover?" I said. "Hey, man—"**

**"Tell me they're not looking at you. They are, aren't they?"**

"They just had to be looking at him",Grover said.

**"Yeah. Weird, huh? You think those socks would fit me?"**

"Not funny," Annabeth,Jason and,suprisingly,The Stolls said.

**"Not funny, Percy. Not funny at all."**

**The old lady in the middle took out a huge pair of scissors—gold and silver, long-bladed, like shears. I heard Grover catch his breath.**

**"We're getting on the bus," he told me. "Come on."**

**"What?" I said. "It's a thousand degrees in there."**

"GET ON THE BUS!",The campers yelled.

**"Come on!'" He pried open the door and climbed inside, but I stayed back.**

**Across the road, the old ladies were still watching me. The middle one cut the yarn, and I swear I could hear thatsnipacross four lanes of traffic.**

Everyone flinched.

"NOOOO!",The campers yelled,Terified.

"And he's still alive?" Jason asked, obviously appalled. Annabeth nodded.

Annabeth looked pale. "I can't believe neither of you told me" She said with an angry look at Grover.

"You didn't ask" Grover explained.

**Her two friends balled up the electric-blue socks, leaving me wondering who they could possibly be for—Sasquatch or Godzilla.**

"Not Funny",Everyon said.

**At the rear of the bus, the driver wrenched a big chunk of smoking metal out of the engine compartment. The bus shuddered, and the engine roared back to life.**

**The passengers cheered.**

**"Darn right!" yelled the driver. He slapped the bus with his hat. "Everybody back on board!"**

**Once we got going, I started feeling feverish, as if I'd caught the flu.**

**"**Oh gods!",A small camper said,covering his face in his hands.

**Grover didn't look much better. He was shivering and his teeth were chattering.**

**"Grover?"**

**"Yeah?"**

**"What are you not telling me?"**

"A lot," Everyone said.

**He dabbed his forehead with his shirt sleeve. "Percy, what did you see back at the fruit stand?"**

**"You mean the old ladies? What is it about them, man? They're not like ... Mrs. Dodds, are they?"**

"They're way worse,"Annabeth said and Piper nodded.

**His expression was hard to read, but I got the feeling that the fruit-stand ladies were something much, much worse than Mrs. Dodds.**

"No duh!",Several Ares kids yelled.

**He said, "Just tell me what you saw."**

**"The middle one took out her scissors, and she cut the yarn."**

**He closed his eyes and made a gesture with his fingers that might've been crossing himself, but it wasn't. It was something else, something almost—older.**

**He said, "You saw her snip the cord."**

**"Yeah. So?" But even as I said it, I knew it was a big deal.**

**"This is not happening," Grover mumbled. He started chewing at his thumb. "I don't want this to be like the last time."**

"What happened last time?" Piper asked

Grover looked grim and said, "You'll find out.

**"Let me walk you home from the bus station. Promise me."**

**This seemed like a strange request to me, but I promised he could.**

**"Is this like a superstition or something?" I asked.**

**No answer.**

**"Grover—that snipping of the yarn. Does that mean somebody is going to die?"**

"Yes," Annabeth said sadly.

"It does?" Leo asked, "How is he still alive.

Annabeth shrugged. "Fate."

"Can't believe Kelp Head guessed it" Thalia said, shaking her head.

**He looked at me mournfully, like he was already picking the kind of flowers I'd like best on my coffin.**

Everyone shivered.

"End of Chapter",Thalia said,"Who'll read next?".

"I will",Piper passed her the book.

Leo looked at the other campers's faces and felt the tension in the air. It was getting a bit awkward and tense but all that melted away when Piper read the title of the next chapter;

"**Grover Unexpectedly looses his pants**",Piper read in a serious voice and the campers bursted out laughing.

Grover blushed.

"Now kids,it is getting latr. We shall continue tommorow" Chiron said

Everyone went to their cabins and Leo immediatly crashed on his bunk in cabin fell instantly asleep.

He dreamt he was back at the campfire,but it was was looking around for people,but he found no one. But his search for people stopped as stopped to sit down.

Because just then a cool-looking guy with wind-blown black hair,deep sea-green eyes wearing a purple shirt appeared in front of him.

When he looked at the guy,Leo knew his name was the name he heard constantly in this camp.

The guy in front of him was Percy Jackson. And he wasn't alone...


	4. An Unexpected Friend

**The HoO Read The Lightning Thief;Chapter 4**

-**Leo**-

**A/N:Thank you soo much to all the awesome people who took the time to read and review!You guys are the best!And with the story :) ...**

Leo stared at the raven-haired guy in front of him in shock.

_Holy Hephaestus,_Leo thought,_It's him! But why is he in my dream?Creepy..._

Percy was wearing a plain purple T-shirt,with a cool black leather jacket,black jeans,and regular black-and-white convers.

There were three other people with him. A boy and two girls.

The guy looked Asian, with the body of a wrestler but the face of an innocent little kid even if he looked his guy reminded Leo of the nice Cyclops Tyson he and his friends had met at camp. The kid had a bow and arrow at his side and he was wearing a purple shirt like percy,grey sneakers,and blue jeans.

One of the girls was really hot with long black hair,light skin, and dark eyes,she looked his age (16).She had that look that told you immediately that she was NOT someone to mess had a sword drawn and her dark eyes flashed in anger and made a mental note to NEVER tick this girl was also wearing a purple shirt,dark blue pants,and black sneakers.

The last girl was younger and beautiful like the other girl,but in a different eyes were was also wearing a purple shirt,(what was it with them and purple?,Leo thought)gray jeans and blue had curly brown hair, dark skin, and eyes the color of had a feeling he had seen the girl somewhere,but he let that thought go.

Because Percy Jackson and his friends were surrounded by monsters.

I quickly looked at the monsters around Percy and the other 3 demi-gods and thougtht that they would need help.I wanted to go running to them, and maybe bust some heads to impress the girls,but strangely,he found he couldn't move his legs.

Leo called out,but he knew it was was dreaming, so how in Hades' were they supposed to hear him?

So you can say Leo got a big shock when Percy Jackson looked right at him and said,"Don't worry!Can you move?!"

Despite his shock Leo replied,"I can't!Sorry I can't help!" he added with a dissapointed face.

Percy laughed kindly and Leo saw why Percy had so many friends.

"It's alright,we can take them",Percy said to both Leo and the people next to him,"You guys ready?",Percy asked.

"As ready as I'll ever be",The Asian kid said with an expression that said "Why does this always happen to me?".

"Ready",Said the brown haired girl,with determination.

"I'll take stinky over there",The black haired girl said calmly,pointing at a Hellhound that smelled like the inside of a sewer.

Percy nodded and shouted,"NOW!",and they all charged at the monsters.

If it had been him,Piper,and Jason had charged at the monsters like that he would've thought they were dead meat. But Percy and his friends took the monsters on like they did this everyday (And Leo thought percy did that pretty often).

Leo mainly looked at Percy fighting. He had heard such great stories from the Stolls about what Percy had done but Leo barely believed One ;Cuz it seemed too crazy to be true. And Two;The Stolls had told him. But watching Percy fight now made Leo believe all those stories he had heard.

Percy attacked the monsters like a hurricane, monsters disintegrated with every slash of his guy was an amazing fighter even better (gods forbid he would ever find out) than Jason.

After only what seemed like 20 minutes,there wasn't a single monster in sight.

Percy and his friends grouped around and high-five'd each Percy looked at me and said,"Hey.I'm is Frank",He said pointing at the Asian kid,"Hazel",The girl with the curly hair,"And Reyna",The girl with the black hair."Who are you?",He asked me.

"I'm Leo Valdez",I said with a smile."Glad to meet ya and all. Do you know...Or remember a girl named Annabeth?",I asked him hesitantly.

I know,how could the guy forget his girlfriend? But Jason HAD lost all his memories when he came to camp, and since Leo didn't like the pained look Annabeth always had when she talked about Percy...

Well,he wanted to know if the guy remebered something at way he could find a way to warn annabeth about it without her getting that hurt when she saw him.

Percy's eyes went wide,"Do you know her?Is she with you?And of course I remember her!I've never forgotten her! ",He said urgently.

Ok,scratch what I said about him forgetting. It looks to me as if he remembered exactly who she was.

"Yeah I know her but no she is not with. She would have loved to chat with you though",I said,smirking.

Percy's were soo filled with sadness that I felt bad for the guy,it wans't fair what Hera did to him,Leo thought.

"Can you give her something from me?",Percy asked,hope in his sea-green eyes.

"Sure",Leo said with a friendly smile.

Leo turned to the people behind Percy.

The brown-Haired girl,Hazel, was looking at him as if he were a ghost but also stared at him with curiosity in her face and so did Frank.

"I'm guessing you're Roman?",Leo asked them.

"Yes,and you must be Greek",Reyna retorted.

Leo nodded and brought out his palm,"The son of Hephaestus and...",Leo paused for dramatic effect.

Then, he let his hand catch on fire,"Fire Master",He finished.

Percy and Reyna stared at him with interest, but Hazel and Frank backed up at the sight of Leo's flaming hand.

Leo suddenly realized that they were getting dimer, and he could hear Piper's voice above him,"Leo!Wake up!".

Percy quickly realized Leo was fading and put a small package in Leo's hand. Percy locked eyes with him and said,"Be safe,Leo",with concern in his eyes as if he was worried about Leo.

That's when Leo knew that Percy Jackson had just become his friend.

He raised his hand in farewell and suddenly his eyes opened.

He saw Jason and Piper's faces above him,frowning in concern, but when they saw his eyes open,they sighed in relief.

"Leo!Their about to start reading the next chapter!We came to wake you up but...",Jason and Piper's voices seem to drown on and on,but Leo wasn't paying attention.

He was more focused on the package in his hand.

"I just met Percy Jackson",Leo said matter-of-factly,interrupting what Jason was saying.

"What?!",Jason and Piper said at the same time.

"That's impossible...",Piper said.

"You must've hit your head with something Leo",Jason said. When Leo had mentioned Percy's name, he saw a strange look on jason's face, almost jelaousy.

"I did" Leo said seriously, which scared Jason and Piper.

Leo slowly pulled out the package to show them.

"Well go on!Open it!",Jason urged.

"No",Leo said,shaking his head,"I promised Percy that I would give it to Annabeth".

"He remembers her?!",Piper asked with a smile in her face.

"He told me he never forgot",Leo said with a slow smile forming on his face.

"Well,let's go give it to her!",Jason said cheerfully.

Leo nodded and thought about his new friend.

_5 minutes later_

"ANNABETH!",Jason,Piper, and Leo shouted when they arrived at the camp amplifire.

"What's up?",Annabeth asked us, a little startled.

"I have a gift for you",Leo said with a smile.

Annabeth eye'd the gift warily,as if the Stolls had done something to it.

"It's ok Leo,you don't have to..",Annabeth said.

"I promised him I would give it to you",Leo interrupted her.

"Who?",Annabeth and some other kids asked curiously.

"Oh none other than my new friend Percy Jackson!",Leo said.

Annabeth stared at him in shock and took the package.

She opened it and out of it, a rainbow came out.

And I kid you not,It was a real rainbow.

Inside was a Annabeth saw it,she smiled,with tears in her eyes.

"What does it say?",An Apollo kid asked.

"After the story,please",Chiron called.

Piper took the book and read,"**Grover Unexpectickly Losses His Pant".**


	5. The Next Chapter and The Letter

**The HoO Read The Lightning Thief;Chapter 5**

-**Piper**-

**"Grover Unexpectedly Loses His Pants**,"Piper read out loud,smiling at the chapter's_ original _name.

"It actually says that?!,"Jason asked me,with a surprised look.

"Yeah,it does,"I answered.

All the campers,specially the Hermes kids,started howling with laughter.

"And why grover,did you lose your pants unexpectedly?,"Travis asked him.

Grover blushed but kept quiet.

I noticed,out of the cornor of my eye,that Chiron was looking gravely at the book,as if he expected something to happen.

**Confession time: I ditched Grover as soon as we got to the bus terminal.**

**"**Never confess Percy!,"shouted the Hermes cabin.

The rest of us rolled our eyes at them.

"Why did he do that?,"Rachel asked Grover,who shrugged.

**I know, I know. It was rude. But Grover was freaking me out, looking at me like I was a dead man, muttering "Why does this always happen?" and "Why does it always have to be sixth grade?"**

"Ok,maybe that was a little creepy,"Grover said sheepishly.

"Ya think?",Connor said,rolling his eyes.

"Way to keep cool,Grover,"Travis added.

"I thought he was going to die!,"Grover explaimed indignantly.

**Instead of waiting, I got my suitcase, slipped outside, and caught the first taxi uptown.**

**"East One-hundred-and-fourth and First," I told the driver.**

Travis and Connor exchanged grins.

"You will not prank Percy's house,"Katie said sternly.

**A word about my mother, before you meet her.**

"She's awesome!,"Annabeth said.

"Best cook ever!,",Grover and Thalia said.

"Nicest lady ever!,"Nico said with a small smile on his face.

**Her name is Sally Jackson and she's the best person in the world, which just proves my theory that the best people have the rottenest luck.**

"Woah, woah,whoa!Are you guys hearing this?!,"Travis asked,shocked.

"What's wrong?,"Annabeth asked him.

"Percy has a theory?!,"Travis said in disbelieve.

I gave him my best 'shut-the-hell-up-or-I'll-do-somethin-bad-to-you' look and he stayed quiet.

**Her own parents died in a plane crash when she was five, and she was raised by an uncle who didn't care much about her. She wanted to be a novelist, so she spent high school working to save enough money for a college with a good creative-writing program. Then her uncle got cancer, and she had to quit school her senior year to take care of him. After he died, she was left with no money, no family, and no diploma.**

_That's pretty bad luck,_Piper thought.

"I'll make sure that lady get's her diploma,"A woman's voice rang behind them.

Piper turned and saw a beautiful woman with jet-black long hair,stormy gray eyes like Annabeth's, wearing blue denim jeans, a white blouse, and combat boots. This woman radiated power and energy and Piper knew this had to be Annabeth's mom,the goddess Athena.

"Mom!What are you doing here?,"Annabeth asked with a smile on her face.

Athena turned to her and said,"I don't really know".

"Back to the reading,please Piper,"Chiron said.

Everyone was wondering why the gods showed up,despite Olympus being closed.

I nodded and continued.

**The only good break she ever got was meeting my dad.**

"How in Olympus would meeting Barnecle-Beard be a good thing,"Athena rest of the campers shared grins.

**I don't have any memories of him, just this sort of warm glow, maybe the barest trace of his smile. My mom doesn't like to talk about him because itmakes her sad. She has no pictures.**

**See, they weren't married. She told me he was rich and important, and their relationship was a secret. Then one day, he set sail across the Atlantic on some important journey, and he never came back.**

**Lost at sea, my mom told me. Not dead. Lost at sea.**

"Wow,"The Hermes kids and Hermes (Yeah hermes was still there) said together,impressed.

"That's like a lie-,"Travis began.

"-But not a lie at the same time!,"Connor finished.

"COOL!,"The Hermes cabin shouted.

**She worked odd jobs, took night classes to get her high school diploma, and raised me on her own. She never complained or got mad. Not even once. But I knew I wasn't an easy kid.**

"That's hard to believe",Thalia said sarcasticly and all of Percy's friends laughed.

**Finally, she married Gabe Ugliano, who was nice the first thirty seconds we knew him,**

"Ugh,I still hate that guy,"Grover said,wrinkling his nose in disgust.

"Why do you hate him soo much?,"Annabeth asked with curiousity.

"I promised Percy I wouldn't say anything,"Grover said.

Annabeth pouted,but decided not to pry.

**then showed his true colors as a world-class jerk. When I was young, I nick named him Smelly Gabe. I'm sorry, but it's the truth. The guy reeked like moldy garlic pizza wrapped in gym shorts.**

"EWW!,"Shriked the Aphrodite Piper,Annabeth and Thalia.

"Why would a nice lady ever marry that?!,"Piper asked.

**Between the two of us, we made my mom's life pretty hard. The way Smelly Gabe treated her, the way he and I got along ... well, when I came home is a good example.**

**I walked into our little apartment, hoping my mom would be home from work. Instead, Smelly Gabe was in the living room, playing poker with his buddies. The television blared ESPN. Chips and beer cans were strewn all over the carpet.**

Everyone gagged at the description.

**Hardly looking up, he said around his cigar, "So, you're home."**

**"Where's my mom?"**

**"Working," he said. "You got any cash?"**

"He just got home and he's asking him for money!?,"Annabeth asked in disgust.

"Not even we would do that!,"Connor and Travis said.

"Jerk",everyone muttered,along with some curses, and some suggestions to where Gabe could go (Like,'Go rot in Tartarus', for example)

**That was it. No Welcome back. Good to see you. How has your life been the last six months?**

**Gabe had put on weight. He looked like a tuskless walrus in thrift-store clothes. He had about three hairs on his head, all combed over his bald scalp, as if that made him handsome or something.**

All the girls started gagging again.

"This guy makes me want to barf," Leo said, while Jason made a face.

"Tell me about it,"Piper and Jason said.

**He managed the Electronics Mega-Mart in Queens, but he stayed home most of the time. I don't know why he hadn't been fired long before. He just kept on collecting paychecks, spending the money on cigars that made me nauseous, and on beer, of course. Always beer.**

**Whenever I was home, he expected me to provide his gambling funds. He called that our "guy secret." Meaning, if I told my mom, he would punch my lights out.**

Annabeth suddenly stood up and grabbed she led him to the Big House.

"I think we should follow her,"Leo suggested.

Piper and Jason nodded and together,they made their way to the Big House.

Inside they found Annabeth and Grover.

"Hey ? What was that all about?,"Leo asked.

"I need to ask Grover something really guys can stay and listen if you want,but don't tell it?,"She asked us.

We nodded and sat down.

" Gabe beat Percy?,"Annabeth asked grover. Annbeth took deep breaths,as if she was calming herself.

Slowly,Grover nodded.

Annabeth's eyes were filled with anger."Why didn't you ever tell me! I hate that bastard!I'm gonna go beat the crap and beer out of him!,"Annabeth started to get up,but Grover held her back.

"This is why Percy didn't want you to find out Annabeth!,"Grover said,"We will talk about this later but let's go back,ok?,"

Annabeth nodded curtly and stood up.

But they didn't realize that the entire camp had heard them talking...

They went back and Piper started reading.

**"I don't have any cash," I told him.**

**He raised a greasy eyebrow.**

**Gabe could sniff out money like a bloodhound, which was surprising, since his own smell should've covered up everything else.**

"Nice one Perce,"The stolls said,laughing.

"Still true,though,"Grover muttered.

**"You took a taxi from the bus station," he said. "Probably paid with a twenty. Got six, seven bucks in change. Somebody expects to live under this roof, he ought to carry his own weight. Am I right, Eddie?"**

**Eddie, the super of the apartment building, looked at me with a twinge of sympathy. "Come on, Gabe," he said. "The kid just got here."**

**"**FINALLY!,"The entire camp shouted.

They got some weird looks from Athena and Hermes,who couldn't believe their children cared so much about Percy**.**

**"Am Iright?"Gabe repeated.**

**Eddie scowled into his bowl of pretzels. The other two guys passed gas in harmony.**

"Ew." Piper said, she felt bad for Percy. That he had to live with that for most of his that did not seem like an easy thing to do.

**"Fine," I said. I dug a wad of dollars out of my pocket and threw the money on the table. "I hope you lose."**

**"Your report card came, brain boy!" he shouted after me. "I wouldn't act so snooty!"**

Annabeth and Grover snorted.

**I slammed the door to my room, which really wasn't my room. During school months, it was Gabe's "study." He didn't study anything in there except old car magazines, but he loved shoving my stuff in the closet, leaving his muddy boots on my windowsill, and doing his best to make the place smell like his nasty cologne and cigars and stale beer.**

Everyone looked like they wanted to throw up at that.

**I dropped my suitcase on the bed. Home sweet home.**

**Gabe's smell was almost worse than the nightmares about Mrs. Dodds,**

**"**Really?,"Jason asked.

**or the sound of that old fruit lady's shears snipping the yarn.**

"Damn,it must be bad...,"Jason muttered.

**But as soon as I thought that, my legs felt weak. I remembered Grover's look of panic—how he'd made me promise I wouldn't go home without him. A sudden chill rolled through me. I felt like someone—something—was looking for me right now, maybe pounding its way up the stairs, growing long, horrible talons.**

Everyone shuddered and Piper felt she could relate to still had nightmares about the first giant she had ever faced.

**Then I heard my mom's voice. "Percy?"**

**She opened the bedroom door, and my fears melted.**

**My mother can make me feel good just by walking into the room.**

"Aww!,"All the Aphrodite girls who had secret crushes on Percy gushed.

_He's really a sweet guy,_Piper gave Annabeth a smile.

"His mom is really awesome,"Grover said.

**Her eyes sparkle and change color in the light. Her smile is as warm as a quilt. She's got a few gray streaks mixed in with her long brown hair, but I never think of her as old. When she looks at me, it's like she's seeing all the good things about me, none of the bad.**

"That's nice,"Thalia,Annabeth,Nico, and Grover said smiling.

"Lucky" Travis and Connor said,pouting.

**I've never heard her raise her voice or say an unkind word to anyone, not even me or Gabe.**

**"Oh, Percy." She hugged me tight. "I can't believe it. You've grown since Christmas!"**

**Her red-white-and-blue Sweet on America uniform smelled like the best things in the world: chocolate, licorice, and all the other stuff she sold at the candy shop in Grand Central. She'd brought me a huge bag of "free samples," the way she always did when I came home.**

"I want a bag of free samples!"The stolls and Leo said.

**We sat together on the edge of the bed. While I attacked the blueberry sour strings, she ran her hand through my hair and demanded to know everything I hadn't put in my letters. She didn't mention anything about my getting expelled. She didn't seem to care about that. But was I okay? Was her little boy doing all right?**

**I told her she was smothering me, and to lay off and all that, but secretly, I was really, really glad to see her.**

"He is too sweet!"

"AWW"

"He has such a big heart"

We all rolled our eyes at the other Aphrodite girls.

**From the other room, Gabe yelled, "Hey, Sally—how about some bean dip, huh?"**

**I gritted my teeth.**

Just like everyone was doing now ( Even Chiron).

**My mom is the nicest lady in the world. She should've been married to a millionaire, not to some jerk like Gabe.**

Annabeth smiled,"At least she has Paul now,".

" And they are happy that way,"Nico said remembered the times he gone to Sally's and she had treated him like a son. He loved her like a mother in return.

**For her sake, I tried to sound upbeat about my last days at Yancy Academy. I told her I wasn't too down about the expulsion. I'd lasted almost the whole year this time. I'd made some new friends. I'd done pretty well in Latin. And honestly, the fights hadn't been as bad as the headmaster said. I liked Yancy Academy. I really did. I put such a good spin on the year, I almost convinced myself.**

**I started choking up, thinking about Grover and Mr. Brunner.**

**"**Aww,"The Demeter and Aphrodite girls gushed and chiron smiled.

**Even Nancy Bobofit suddenly didn't seem so bad.**

**Until that trip to the museum ...**

**"What?" my mom asked. Her eyes tugged at my conscience, trying to pull out the secrets. "Did something scare you?"**

**"No, Mom."**

"Don't lie to her,"Thalia and I said at the same time.

"He has a good reason though,"Rachel pointed out.

"Still,she would understand,"Annabeth said.

Surprisingly, the Stolls nodded in agreement.

**I felt bad lying. I wanted to tell her about Mrs. Dodds and the three old ladies with the yarn, but I thought it would sound stupid.**

"Well,you are already,Kelp head,"Thalia mumbled under her breath.

Travis and Connor,who of course were listening, smirked at her.

**She pursed her lips. She knew I was holding back, but she didn't push me.**

**"I have a surprise for you," she said. "We're going to the beach."**

**My eyes widened. "Montauk?"**

"What's Montauk?,"Leo asked.

"A beach,"Grover replied.

**"Three nights—same cabin."**

**"When?"**

**She smiled. "As soon as I get changed."**

**I couldn't believe it. My mom and I hadn't been to Montauk the last two summers, because Gabe said there wasn't enough money.**

**Gabe appeared in the doorway and growled, "Bean dip, Sally? Didn't you hear me?"**

**"**I'm going to get him..,"Thalia and Annabeth said.

**I wanted to punch him, but I met my mom's eyes and I understood she was offering me a deal: be nice to Gabe for a little while. Just until she was ready to leave for Montauk. Then we would get out of here.**

**"**Good,"Jason said.

**"I was on my way, honey," she told Gabe. "We were just talking about the trip."**

**Gabe's eyes got small. "The trip? You mean you were serious about that?"**

**"I knew it," I muttered. "He won't let us go."**

**"Of course he will," my mom said evenly. "Your step father is just worried about money. That's all. Besides," she added, "Gabriel won't have to settle for bean dip. I'll make him enough seven-layer dip for the whole weekend. Guacamole. Sour cream. The works."**

**Gabe softened a bit. "So this money for your trip ... it comes out of your clothes budget, right?"**

Piper snorted. She wanted to beat up this creep and she got the idea she wasnt the only one.

**"Yes, honey," my mother said.**

**"And you won't take my car anywhere but there and back."**

Grover grinned mischeviously.

**"We'll be very careful."**

**Gabe scratched his double chin. "Maybe if you hurry with that seven-layer dip ... And maybe if the kid apologizes for interrupting my poker game."**

"He doesn't need to apologize!" Jason and Piper exclaimed.

**Maybe if I kick you in your soft spot, I thought. And make you sing soprano for a week.**

**"**DO IT!,"The Hermes,Ares campers and Leo yelled.

**But my mom's eyes warned me not to make him mad.**

**Why did she put up with this guy? I wanted to scream. Why did she care what he thought?**

"She did it for you,"Grover muttered.

**"I'm sorry," I muttered. "I'm really sorry I interrupted your incredibly important poker game. Please go back to it right now."**

**"**Ah,you can just feel the sarcasm,"Nico said,grining.

**Gabe's eyes narrowed. His tiny brain was probably trying to detect sarcasm in my statement.**

"He has a brain?!,"Thalia asked,surprised.

The other campers snickered.

**"Yeah, whatever," he decided.**

**He went back to his game.**

**"Thank you, Percy," my mom said. "Once we get to Montauk, we'll talk more about... whatever you've forgotten to tell me, okay?"**

"It's like she can read his mind!,"Leo said,wide-eyed, we all shook our heads at him.

**For a moment, I thought I saw anxiety in her eyes—the same fear I'd seen in Grover during the bus ride—as if my mom too felt an odd chill in the air.**

The demigods shivered.

**But then her smile returned, and I figured I must have been mistaken. She ruffled my hair and went to make Gabe his seven-layer dip.**

**An hour later we were ready to leave.**

**Gabe took a break from his poker game long enough to watch me lug my mom's bags to the car. He kept griping and groaning about losing her cooking—and more important, his '78 Camaro—for the whole weekend.**

**"Not a scratch on this car, brain boy," he warned me as I loaded the last bag. "Not one little scratch."**

"Like he'd be the one driving!,"Thalia said campers nodded their heads.

**Like I'd be the one driving.**

"Hahaha,thinking like Percy now are ya Thals?,"Annabeth teased.

Thalia crossed her arms and pouted.

**I was twelve. But that didn't matter to Gabe. If a seagull so much as pooped on his paint job, he'd find a way to blame me.**

"Jerk,"Campers muttered.

"Percy should have soo kicked him in the soft spot,"Leo mumbled.

**Watching him lumber back toward the apartment building, I got so mad I did something I can't explain.**

**As Gabe reached the doorway, I made the hand gesture I'd seen Grover make on the bus, a sort of warding-off-evil gesture, a clawed hand over my heart, then a shoving movement toward Gabe.**

**The screen door slammed shut so hard it whacked him in the butt and sent him flying up the stair case as if he'd been shot from a cannon. Maybe it was just the wind, or some freak accident with the hinges, but I didn't stay long enough to find out.**

"COOL!,"Shouted the Hermes cabin.

"Wizard!,"Connor,Travis,Leo, and even Jason said in surprise.

**I got in the Camaro and told my mom to step on it.**

**Our rental cabin was on the south shore, way out at the tip of Long Island. It was a little pastel box with faded curtains, half sunken into the dunes. There was always sand in the sheets and spiders in the cabinets,**

Annabeth shivered.

**and most of the time the sea was too cold to swim in.**

"It wouldn't bother him,"Nico said.

**I loved the place.**

"Naturally,"Thalia said.

**We'd been going there since I was a baby. My mom had been going even longer. She never exactly said, but I knew why the beach was special to her.**

**It was the place where she'd met my dad.**

"Cute,"Lacey from Aphrodite squealed.

**As we got closer to Montauk, she seemed to grow younger, years of worry and work disappearing from her face. Her eyes turned the color of the sea.**

**We got there at sunset, opened all the cabin's windows, and went through our usual cleaning routine. We walked on the beach, fed blue corn chips to the seagulls, and munched on blue jelly beans, blue saltwater taffy, and all the other free samples my mom had brought from work.**

"What's with all the blue foods?" Leo asked.

Jason laughed and Piper continued to read.

**I guess I should explain the blue food.**

**See, Gabe had once told my mom there was no such thing. They had this fight, which seemed like a really small thing at the time. But ever since, my mom went out of her way to eat blue. She baked blue birthday cakes. She mixed blueberry smoothies. She bought blue-corn tortilla chips and brought home blue candy from the shop. This—along with keeping her maiden name, Jackson, rather than calling herself Mrs. Ugliano—was proof that she wasn't totally suckered by Gabe. She did have a rebellious streak, like me.**

"GABE GOT TOLD,!'Leo and,surprisingly the Ares cabin shouted.

"Percy's got more than a streak,"Rachel and Annabeth said.

**When it got dark, we made a fire. We roasted hot dogs and marshmallows. Mom told me stories about when she was a kid, back before her parents died in the plane crash. She told me about the books she wanted to write someday, when she had enough money to quit the candy shop.**

**Eventually, I got up the nerve to ask about what was always on my mind whenever we came to Montauk—my father. Mom's eyes went all misty. I figured she would tell me the same things she always did, but I never got tired of hearing them.**

**"He was kind, Percy," she said. "Tall, handsome, and powerful. But gentle, too. You have his black hair, you know, and his green eyes."**

"So that's what Uncle Poseidon looks like,"Jason said thoughtfully.

**Mom fished a blue jelly bean out of her candy bag. "I wish he could see you, Percy. He would be so proud."**

"He's very proud of him," Annabeth said with a smile.

Piper saw jelousy flash through Jason's eyes and understood,couldn't their parents show they were proud of _them._

**I wondered how she could say that. What was so great about me? A dyslexic, hyperactive boy with a D+ report card, kicked out of school for the sixth time in six years.**

**"How old was I?" I asked. "I mean ... when he left?"**

**She watched the flames. "He was only with me for one summer, Percy. Right here at this beach. This cabin."**

**"But... he knew me as a baby."**

**"No, honey. He knew I was expecting a baby, but he never saw you. He had to leave before you were born."**

**I tried to square that with the fact that I seemed to remember ... something about my father. A warm glow. A smile.**

**I had always assumed he knew me as a baby. My mom had never said it outright, but still, I'd felt it must be true. Now, to be told that he'd never even seen me...**

**I felt angry at my father. Maybe it was stupid, but I resented him for going on that ocean voyage, for not having the guts to marry my mom. He'd left us, and now we were stuck with Smelly Gabe.**

Annabeth growled at the mention of Gabe.

**"Are you going to send me away again?" I asked her. "To another boarding school?"**

**She pulled a marshmallow from the fire.**

**"I don't know, honey." Her voice was heavy. "I think ... I think we'll have to do something."**

**"Because you don't want me around?"**

"Percy!"Annabeth and Thalia yelled.

"That was mean!" Piper said.

**I regretted the words as soon as they were out.**

"Good," Annabeth and Piper said.

**My mom's eyes welled with tears. She took my hand, squeezed it tight. "Oh, Percy, no. I—I have to, honey. For your own good. I have to send you away."**

**Her words reminded me of what Mr. Brunner had said—that it was best for me to leave Yancy.**

**"Because I'm not normal," I said.**

**"You say that as if it's a bad thing, Percy. But you don't realize how important you are. I thought Yancy Academy would be far enough away. I thought you'd finally be safe."**

**"Safe from what?"**

**She met my eyes, and a flood of memories came back to me—all the weird, scary things that had ever happened to me, some of which I'd tried to forget.**

**During third grade, a man in a black trench coat had stalked me on the playground. When the teachers threatened to call the police, he went away growling, but no one believed me when I told them that under his broad-brimmed hat, the man only had one eye, right in the middle of his head.**

"That's kinda creepy," Jason said with a shiver.

**Before that—a really early memory. I was in preschool, and a teacher accidentally put me down for a nap in a cot that a snake had slithered into. My mom screamed when she came to pick me up and found me playing with a limp, scaly rope I'd somehow managed to strangle to death with my meaty toddler hands.**

**"**BEAST!,'The hermes cabin shouted.

**In every single school, something creepy had happened, something unsafe, and I was forced to move.**

**I knew I should tell my mom about the old ladies at the fruit stand, and Mrs. Dodds at the art museum, about my weird hallucination that I had sliced my math teacher into dust with a sword. But I couldn't make myself tell her. I had a strange feeling the news would end our trip to Montauk, and I didn't want that.**

**"I've tried to keep you as close to me as I could," my mom said. "They told me that was a mistake. But there's only one other option, Percy—the place your father wanted to send you. And I just... I just can't stand to do it."**

**"My father wanted me to go to a special school?"**

**"Not a school," she said softly. "A summer camp."**

**My head was spinning. Why would my dad—who hadn't even stayed around long enough to see me born— talk to my mom about a summer camp? And if it was so important, why hadn't she ever mentioned it before?**

**"I'm sorry, Percy," she said, seeing the look in my eyes. "But I can't talk about it. I—I couldn't send you to that place. It might mean saying good-bye to you for good."**

**"For good? But if it's only a summer camp ..."**

**She turned toward the fire, and I knew from her expression that if I asked her any more questions she would start to cry.**

**That night I had a vivid dream.**

"I hate demigod dreams,"Jason said and the campers nodded.

"Specailly Percy's dreams..,"Thalia said.

**It was storming on the beach, and two beautiful animals, a white horse and a golden eagle, were trying to kill each other at the edge of the surf.**

What are Zeus and Poseidon fighting about? Jason thought.

**The eagle swooped down and slashed the horse's muzzle with its huge talons. The horse reared up and kicked at the eagles wings. As they fought, the ground rumbled, and a monstrous voice chuckled somewhere beneath the earth, goading the animals to fight harder. I ran toward them, knowing I had to stop them from killing each other, but I was running in slow motion. I knew I would be too late. I saw the eagle dive down, its beak aimed at the horse's wide eyes, and I screamed,No!**

**I woke with a start.**

**Outside, it really was storming, the kind of storm that cracks trees and blows down houses. There was no horse or eagle on the beach, just lightning making false daylight, and twenty-foot waves pounding the dunes like artillery.**

**With the next thunderclap, my mom woke. She sat up, eyes wide, and said, "Hurricane."**

**I knew that was crazy. Long Island never sees hurricanes this early in the summer. But the ocean seemed to have forgotten. Over the roar of the wind, I heard a distant bellow, an angry, tortured sound that made my hair stand on end.**

**Then a much closer noise, like mallets in the sand. A desperate voice—someone yelling, pounding on our cabin door.**

**My mother sprang out of bed in her nightgown and threw open the lock.**

**Grover stood framed in the doorway against a backdrop of pouring rain. But he wasn't... he wasn't exactly Grover.**

"Who was he then?" Leo asked,"Chuck Noris?,"

"No, young Leo" Travis said with a serious expression.

"He was really..."Connor continued.

"DARTH VADER!"They both finished dramatically.

The campers roared with laughter and Grover shook his head.

**"Searching all night," he gasped. "What were you thinking?"**

**My mother looked at me in terror—not scared of Grover, but of why he'd come.**

**"Percy," she said, shouting to be heard over the rain. "What happened at school? What didn't you tell me?"**

"Dramatic,"Thalia and Jason said.

**I was frozen, looking at Grover. I couldn't understand what I was seeing.**

"Not that hard Perce,"Grover said,rolling his eyes.

**"O Zeu kai alloi theoi!"he yelled. "It's right behind me! Didn't you tell her?"**

"No!He didn't" Leo said and Nyssa wacked him on the head.

**I was too shocked to register that he'd just cursed in Ancient Greek, and I'd understood him perfectly. I was too shocked to wonder how Grover had gotten here by himself in the middle of the night. Because Grover didn't have his pants on—**

"Didn't someone tell you to always wear your pants?" Connor joked.

"Nah,I bet he runs everywhere pantless,"Travis replied, playing along.

Everyone laughed.

**Because where his legs should be... His legs should be...**

**My mom looked at me sternly and talked in a tone she'd never used before:" Percy! Answer me now!"**

**I stammered something about the old ladies at the fruit stand, and Mrs. Dodds, and my mom stared at me, her face deathly pale in the flashes of lightning.**

**She grabbed her purse, tossed me my rain jacket, and said, "Get to the car. Both of you!"**

**Grover ran for the Camaro—but he wasn't running, exactly. He was trotting, shaking his shaggy hindquarters, and suddenly his story about a muscular disorder in his legs made sense to me. I understood how he could run so fast and still limp when he walked.**

"Shaggy hindquarters?" Grover said, while everyone laughed.

**Because where his feet should be, there were no feet. There were cloven hooves.**

"Real dramatic there Perce," Grover said.

Piper handed the book to Jason. "Your turn," she said.

"Yes," said Jason excitedly, "My Mother Teaches Me BullFighting."

_Annabeth_

I quickly asked to go to the bathroom and in there,I looked at Percy's letter

It read;

_Hey there Wise-Girl._

_You might probably hate me right now,and I understand._

_But I want you to know,Annabeth,that I love you._

_I have never, and will never forget matter what the gods do,they can't make me forget you._

_I have a pretty good idea of Hera's plan.I've already been on a quest with two Romans and I already have good friends in here._

_I can't wait to go back home and see you 's all that's kept me the trip to the camp,the quest, and even now._

_I love you,Annabeth Chace._

_And I hope you missed me too :)_

_I want you to see the camp,I know you'll love the architecture will love the plants and Tyson's already here._

_See you soon,Love. I will find a way back to I will never let go of you again._

_Love you,_

_Your Seaweed-Brain,_

_Percy Jackson _


	6. Gods and New Arrivals

**The HoO Read The Lightning Thief;Chapter 6**

**I'm really sorry I haven't updated in the last 2 days :(,I hope you like the chapter!A special thx to;JessiDisney,Lieutenant Sarcasm(: ,Shur'tugal Daughter of Artemis,aesir21,jason8926,Angel-of-the-Seas, and lollipop9066 for your ,XxThisMyFriendIsAPenxX for her advice. :)**

-**JASON**-

Jason was extremly annoyed. He was supposed to rise through the ranks in this camp,but whenever he did anything,he was immediately compared to the 'Great Percy Jackson'.

Maybe annoyed was not the best was Jelaous.

Everything at camp was _Percy Jackson this,_ and _Percy jackson that._Jason knew he shouldn't resent a guy he didn't even know,but he couldn't help feeling jelaous at the way everyone had looked awed at all the heroic things Percy Jackson had done,even _before_ camp.

And even Jason couldn't help being amazed by this and the feeling of jelaousy grew stronger when he saw Piper had a look of complete awe and admiration on her face.

**"My Mother Teaches Me Bullfighting" **Jason read

"Well this will FINALLY get interesting!,"A male voice said behind them.

They all turned and saw a man with a handsome face, with scarred cheeks and tall with an oiled crew. Jason knew who this was. It was Mars/Ares,god of war.

Being Roman,Jason imediately knelt before the god.

"Stand,Roman.I've got a message for all you brats" The god of war announced."You are all to go to Olympus to continue your reading of this book".

All the demigods stared at the god in shock.

"Everyone ready?Let 's get going!,"Ares said,snapping his fingers.

Before the demigods could protest or react,they were engulfed in a bright white light.

(**Sorry if it seems to random)**

Suddenly,they all found themselves in a bright white front of them,there were 12 enormous thrones,one for each god,Jason thought.

"What are you doing here?!,"A strong male voice demanded.

Jason turned and got his first look at his own father,Zeus.

His father was in Godly-tall form,as the Stolls had described. He wore an electric blue suit,had stormy black hair,electric blue eyes, and a neatly trimmed beard.

Annabeth came forward and bowed to Zeus.

"Lord Zeus, we do not know why you have summon us here,but I guess we are here to continue with the book?,"She asked.

Athena (who had come with them into Olympus)smiled at looked at her and nodded.

"The fates themselves told us we should listen to this book" Zeus said.

"We do not know why"Hades said"But it seems the Fates themselves want to tell us something..."

Nico looked at his father,"Do we start over from the begining,Father?,"

Hades looked at his son and shook his head,"No, we have read,along with you,the first 4 chapters of this book.I suggest the boy there starts reading,"Hades said,pointing at Jason.

Jason looked around the Throne Room of the gods. Once they were assembled,Jason saw all the Greek gods;Hades,Ares,Dionysus,Hera,Aphrodite, Artemis,Apollo,Athena, Hermes,his father and a tall,kind looking woman that Jason remembered was Hestia.

The throne on the left of his father was empty,Jason noticed._That had to be Poseidon's throne,_Jason thought.

Zeus must have seen him looking at the empty throne,because he called out to it with an annoyed look on his face,"POSEIDON!,"Zeus shouted.

The throne next to Zeus began to glow and suddenly there was a man sitting on it.

The man was deeply tanned,very handsome,with black hair,kind sea-green eyes,with smile lines under. Jason instantly knew this was Lord Poseidon,God Of the Sea and Percy Jackson's dad.

"Yes,brother?,"Poseidon asked,annoyed.

" I have brought here the demigods who are reading books about your...son's adventures,"Zeus said stiffly,as if he had met Percy Jackson and did not like him.

Poseidon quickly looked at us and I saw how the god's eyes were filled with anxiety at the mention of his son,but also interest glinted in his green eyes.

"A book about Perseus?,"He asked,surprised.

"Um,who is Perseus?" Leo asked,stupidly and Jason looked at the gods curiously,who was Perseus?

"That's Percy's full name,Leo" Annabeth said,with a sigh,"But he likes to be called Percy"

Leo nodded. I wonder why he was named after my dad's son..., Jason thought

"All right then,should we go on with the book?,"Hestia asked.

Jason nodded and read.

**We tore through the night along dark country roads. Wind slammed against the Camaro. Rain lashed the wind shield. I didn't know how my mom could see anything, but she kept her foot on the gas**

**"**Best way to drive" Ares said,nodding his approval.

"If you want to end up crashin.." Hephaestus muttered.

**Every time there was a flash of lightning, I looked at Grover sitting next to me in the backseat and I wondered if I'd gone insane, or if he was wearing some kind of shag-carpet pants.**

God and demigods laughed,while Grover blushed furiously.

**"**Shag-carpet pants?,"Apollo asked,laughing.

**But, no, the smell was one I remembered from kindergarten field trips to the petting zoo— lanolin, like from wool. The smell of a wet barnyard animal.**

Nico,The Stolls,and Leo snickered.

**All I could think to say was, "So, you and my mom... know each other?"**

"That sounds wrong!,"Hermes,Apollo, and The Stolls said,getting glares from Artemis,Poseidon,Katie, and Piper.

**Graver's eyes flitted to the rearview mirror, though there were no cars behind us. "Not exactly," he said. "I mean, we've never met in person. But she knew I was watching you."**

"STALKER ALERT!,"The immature people in the room (You know who they are) shouted.

They had to be whacked in the head a couple of times to finally shut up.

"I was NOT stalking him!,"Grover said indignantly.

**"Watching me?"**

"See?,"The Stolls said,"Even Perce agrees!,"

Grover rolled his eyes.

**"Keeping tabs on you. Making sure you were okay. But I wasn't faking being your friend," he added hastily. "I am your friend.**

**"Urn ... whatareyou, exactly?"**

**"That doesn't matter right now."**

**"It doesn't matter? From the waist down, my best friend is a donkey—"**

Everyone roared with laughter and even Artemis and Athena smiled.

**Grover let out a sharp, throaty"Blaa-ha-ha!"**

**I'd heard him make that sound before, but I'd always assumed it was a nervous laugh. Now I realized it was more of an irritated bleat.**

**"Goat!" he cried.**

"No,Grover!It's Goat-Boy!,"Thalia said and the demigods snickered.

**"What?"**

**"I'm a goat from waist down."**

"Goat-Bo-" Thalia started to say

"Yeah,I get it"Grover muttered.

**"You just said it didn't matter."**

**"**He's got a good point",Piper pointed out.

"Only Percy.." Rachel,Thalia, and Annabeth said with a smile.

**"Blaa-ha-ha! There are satyrs who would trample you underhoof for such an insult!"**

"I'd like to see them try" Nico said,rolling his eyes, remembering the incident Percy had with Leneus.

**"Whoa. Wait. Satyrs. You mean like ... Mr. Brunner's myths?"**

**"**There he goes with the Myths again"Jason said,shaking his head.

"Hey,he didn't even know half of what was going on Jason!" Piper countered,which did not help Jason with his jelaousy.

"Yeah man,cut him some slack!,"Leo said.

Wow, even his friends were defending Percy and they didn't even know him!

**"Were those old ladies at the fruit stand myth,Percy? Was Mrs. Dodds a myth?"**

**"So you admit there was a Mrs. Dodds!"**

"He won't let that go"Nico said.

**"Of course."**

**"Then why—"**

**"The less you knew, the fewer monsters you'd attract," Grover said, like that should be perfectly obvious. "We put Mist over the humans' eyes. We hoped you'd think the Kindly One was a hallucination. But it was no good. You started to realize who you are."**

**"Who I—wait a minute, what do you mean?"**

"You're confussing him,Grover!,"Annabeth scolded.

**The weird bellowing noise rose up again somewhere behind us, closer than before. Whatever was chasing us was still on our trail.**

**"Percy," my mom said, "there's too much to explain and not enough time. We have to get you to safety."**

**"Safety from what? Who's after me?"**

**"Oh, nobody much," Grover said, obviously still miffed about the donkey comment. "Just the Lord of the Dead and a few of his blood-thirstiest minions."**

"Why is the Lord of the dead going after Percy?" Leo asked,looking at Hades,who shrugged.

"Thought he had my helm"Hades said after a moment.

"Your Helm Of Darkness?!,"Nico asked, Percy would NEVER steal that.

Hades gave Nico a 'We-will-talk-later' look and Nico nodded.

**"Grover!"**

**"Sorry, Mrs. Jackson. Could you drive faster, please?"**

**I tried to wrap my mind around what was happening, but I couldn't do it. I knew this wasn't a dream. I had no imagination. I could never dream up something this weird.**

"Not true" Every demigod who knew Percy said.

**My mom made a hard left. We swerved onto a narrower road, racing past darkened farmhouses and wooded hills and PICK YOUR OWN STRAWBERRIES signs on white picket fences.**

"They're almost to camp!" said Annabeth and Poseidon in relief.

"Yeah, unless they get blasted!" Leo exclaimed.

"You probably just jinxed them!" Piper,Hermes,Apollo,and The stolls yelled.

"Nuh-uh!Even I can't jinx that!It's in the past!,"Leo countered

"Shut it,Leo!"

**"Where are we going?" I asked.**

**"The summer camp I told you about." My mother's voice was tight; she was trying for my sake not to be scared. "The place your father wanted to send you."**

**"The place you didn't want me to go."**

**"Please, dear," my mother begged. "This is hard enough. Try to understand. You're in danger."**

**"Because some old ladies cut yarn."**

Everyone shook their heads and Nico snorted.

**"Those weren't old ladies," Grover said. "Those were the Fates. Do you know what it means—the fact they appeared in front of you? They only do that when you're about to ... when someone's about to die."**

Everyone shivered.

Annabeth asked,"Was it his life-line?"

Grover looked at her and said calmly,"No"

They all stared at him in asked,"How do you know this Gat-Boy?"

Grover shrugged and said,"Percy told me.I think Chiron knows who life it was".

They all turned to chiron,who shook his head.

"I promised Percy I would keep it a secret",he said.

**"Whoa. You said 'you.'"**

"True" everyone said.

**"No I didn't. I said 'someone.'"**

**"You meant 'you.' As in me."**

**"I meant you,like'someone.' Not you,you."**

Apollo and Hermes scrached their head.

"I am confused"Dionysus said,frowning.

"Wow,Old Drunk is actually listening!"Ares said,shocked.

Dionysus rolled his eyes and began to snore.

**"Boys!" my mom said.**

"Thank you!"Artemis and Thalia said.

**She pulled the wheel hard to the right, and I got a glimpse of a figure she'd swerved to avoid—a dark fluttering shape now lost behind us in the storm.**

**"What was that?" I asked.**

**"We're almost there," my mother said, ignoring my question.**

"Please,let them get there"Poseidon said quietly.

**"Another mile. Please. Please. Please."**

" "Poseidon and Annabeth chanted together.

**I didn't know wheretherewas, but I found myself leaning forward in the car, anticipating, wanting us to arrive.**

**Outside, nothing but rain and darkness—the kind of empty countryside you get way out on the tip of Long Island.**

**I thought about Mrs. Dodds and the moment when she'd changed into the thing with pointed teeth and leathery wings. My limbs went numb from delayed shock. She reallyhadn'tbeen human. She'd meant to kill me.**

"He is soo slow"Clarisse growled.

Demigods who knew Percy glared at Clarisse.

"What?!"She asked.

"He was in shock clarisse!"Thalia said,"He might be slow sometimes but he was in shock".

Clarisse mumbled something about excuses and wimps.

**Then I thought about Mr. Brunner ... and the sword he had thrown me. Before I could ask Grover about that, the hair rose on the back of my neck. There was a blinding flash, a jaw-rattlingboom!,and our car exploded.**

"ZEUS!"Poseidon shouted.

Zeus called for order when many other gods who liked Percy shouted at him.

_Why would dad throw lightning at Percy?And I thought the gods werent supposed to show favoritism. Heckm everyone said most of the gods hated him,_Jason thought.

**I remember feeling weightless, like I was being crushed, fried, and hosed down all at the same time.**

**I peeled my forehead off the back of the driver's seat and said, "Ow."**

**"Percy!" my mom shouted.**

**"I'm okay..."**

**I tried to shake off the daze. I wasn't dead. The car hadn't really exploded. We'd swerved into a ditch. Our driver's-side doors were wedged in the mud. The roof had cracked open like an eggshell and rain was pouring in.**

"Observant"Athena said.

**Lightning. **

Poseidon gave Zeus a terrible glare.

**That was the only explanation. We'd been blasted right off the road. Next to me in the backseat was a big motionless lump. "Grover!"**

**He was slumped over, blood trickling from the side of his mouth. I shook his furry hip, thinking, No! Even if you are half barnyard animal, you're my best friend and I don't want you to die!**

**"**Aww"The goddess sighed.

"Thanks Perce"Grover said with a smile.

Travis and Connor were to busy cracking up."Half barnyard animal.." Chris and Leo muttered while laughing.

**Then he groaned "Food," and I knew there was hope.**

Everyone laughed,while Artemis muttered something that sounded like,_Boys_ under her breath.

**"Percy," my mother said, "we have to ..." Her voice faltered.**

**I looked back. In a flash of lightning, through the mud-spattered rear windshield, I saw a figure lumbering toward us on the shoulder of the road. The sight of it made my skin crawl. It was a dark silhouette of a huge guy, like a football player.**

**He seemed to be holding a blanket over his head. His top half was bulky and fuzzy. His upraised hands made it look like he had horns.**

All of Percy's friends and Posiedon paled.

Annabeth's eyes widened, she did not realized this would be in the books.

**I swallowed hard. "Who is—"**

**"Percy," my mother said, deadly serious. "Get out of the car."**

**My mother threw herself against the driver's-side door. It was jammed shut in the mud. I tried mine. Stuck too. I looked up desperately at the hole in the roof. It might've been an exit, but the edges were sizzling and smoking.**

"I swear Zeus,nothing better happen to my son.."Poseidon growled and muttered a few other curses at Zeus.

Jason was surprised. Other gods didn't show their feelings for their children as much as Poseidon did...

**"Climb out the passenger's side!" my mother told me. "Percy—you have to run. Do you see that big tree?"**

**"**That's me"Thalia said

**"What?"**

**"**Your cousin the tree Percy"Travis said while everyone laughed.

Thalia sent a death glare and Travis gulped.

**Another flash of lightning, and through the smoking hole in the roof I saw the tree she meant: a huge, White House Christmas tree-sized pine at the crest of the nearest hill.**

**"**You were a christmas tree?"Nico asked Thalia.

"No death-head!"Thalia snapped back.

"Somebody has their sassy pants on today..."Nico said.

Thalia gave him a glare and promised herself that she would get her revenge.

**"That's the property line," my mom said. "Get over that hill and you'll see a big farmhouse down in the valley. Run and don't look back. Yell for help. Don't stop until you reach the door."**

**"Mom, you're coming too."**

"She can't"Rachel and Poseidon said together. He smiled at her and rachel smiled sadly.

Hera was silent the whole time. She couldn't believe that son of Poseidon was actually loyal to his mother..If her kids loved her as much as Percy loved his mom...

**Her face was pale, her eyes as sad as when she looked at the ocean.**

**"No!" I shouted. "You are coming with me carry Grover"**

**"Food!" Grover moaned, a little louder.**

**The man with the blanket on his head kept coming toward us, making his grunting, snorting noises. **

**As he got closer, I realized hecouldn'tbe holding a blanket over his head, because his hands—huge meaty hands—were swinging at his sides. There was no blanket. Meaning the bulky, fuzzy mass that was too big to be his head ... was his head. And the points that looked like horns …**

Poseidon growled at Hades and the god of the dead put a barrier between him and Poseidon,just in case the other god tried to do anyhting.

"HE FOUGHT THE MINATOUR?!"Jason,Piper,Leo,Ares and Hermes shouted.

"Damn,that punk's got spunk"Ares said (unaware that the Stolls were video tapping this to show it to Percy when he came back).

Rachel was shaking her head. She had heard about Percy deafeating the Minatour in the war, and the rumor about him deafeating it before he came to camp, though she hadn't believed it until now.

"Percy Jackson has to be about the most badass,ass-kicking demigod EVER!"Leo and everyon,even Piper, nooded. This did not help Jason's Jeloausy.

**"He doesn't wantus," my mother told me. "He , I can't cross the property line."**

"Smart lady"Athena said,surprised.

**"But..."**

**"We don't have time, Percy. Go. Please."**

**I got mad, then—mad at my mother, at Grover the goat,**

Everyone chuckled at that.

"Half goat"Grover mumbled.

"At Grover the Goat-Boy"Thalia said.

"Grover Goat-Pants"Travis snickered.

**at the thing with horns that was lumbering toward us slowly and deliberately like, like a bull.**

**"**Cuz he is one"Piper and Leo said.

"Why,why,why?Why couldn't he have to fight something safer?Why my son?"Poseidon asked with worry all over his face.

"Trust us,Lord, he will face a lot worse,but I think you know"Grover said sadly.

Poseidon paled.

**I climbed across Grover and pushed the door open into the rain. "We're going together. Come on, Mom."**

**"I told you—"**

**"Mom! I am not leaving you. Help me with Grover."**

A lot of gods,goddesses and demigods beamed at hearing how loyal Percy was. This was one of the things that made Percy an awesome friend.

**I didn't wait for her answer. I scrambled outside, dragging Grover from the car. He was surprisingly light, but I couldn't have carried him very far if my mom hadn't come to my aid.**

They all laughed and Grover blushed.

**Together, we draped Grover's arms over our shoulders and started stumbling uphill through wet waist-high grass.**

**"**Lazy drunk"Demeter,who nobody noticed until now, said.

**Glancing back, I got my first clear look at the monster. He was seven feet tall, easy, his arms and legs like something from the cover ofMuscle Manmagazine—bulging biceps and triceps and a bunch of other 'ceps, all stuffed like baseballs under vein-webbed skin. He wore no clothes except under wear—**

Leo burst out laughing, "Why was he only wearing underwear?"

Demigods shrugged.

**I mean, bright white Fruit of the Looms—which would've looked funny,**

"Hell yeah!"Travis said.

"Too funny"Connor said laughing.

**except that the top half of his body was so scary.**

"True enough"They both said.

**Coarse brown hair started at about his belly button and got thicker as it reached his shoulders.**

**"**Eww",Aphrodite and her daughters said.

**His neck was a mass of muscle and fur leading up to his enormous head, which had a snout as long as my arm, snotty nostrils with a gleaming brass ring, cruel black eyes, and horns—enormous black-and-white horns with points you just couldn't get from an electric sharpener.**

"Only Percy would joke at a time like that"They all said beaming.

**"**I'm loving this guy!"Leo said laughing and nodding in approval.

**I recognized the monster, all right. He had been in one of the first stories Mr. Brunner told us. But he couldn't be real.**

"Sorry dude, It's real," said Jason.

Every demigod nodded.

**I blinked the rain out of my eyes. "That's—"**

**"Pasiphae's son," my mother said**

"She is very smart"Athena said"How in Hades did you ever get a smart woman Kelp brain?"

Poseidon and said,"She is a very special woman"

"Must've liked his looks"Hermes guessed.

"No,really?"Athean asked.

Everyone laughed but Poseidon didnt seem to mind.

"She is defenitely something Uncle P.I bet she could out-lie and out-wit Hermes"Apollo said with a smirk.

"Can not"Hermes argued.

**"I wish I'd known how badly they want to kill you."**

**"But he's the Min—"**

**"Don't say his name," she warned. "Names have power."**

Athena and a few other gods were staring at Poseidon in shock.

"She's too smart"Athena said.

"Too smart for uncle P"Apollo agreed and got a mouthful of salt water.

"Shut up" Poseidon said.

"Ms. Jackson is soo cool" Nico and Grover said.

"Best mom ever"Thasaid and Annabeth said.

"Don't forge her cookies" The Stolls said with a dreamy expression.

**The pine tree was still way too far—a hundred yards uphill at least.**

**I glanced behind me again.**

**The bull-man hunched over our car, looking in the windows—or not looking, exactly. More like snuffling, nuzzling. I wasn't sure why he bothered, since we were only about fifty feet away.**

**"Food?" Grover moaned.**

The demigods rolled their eyes at their satyr friend.

**"Shhh," I told him. "Mom, what's he doing? Doesn't he see us?"**

**"His sight and hearing are terrible," she said. "He goes by smell. But he'll figure out where we are soon enough."**

All the Olympians (Minus Poseidon) looked mightily impressed.

"Damn, Uncle P" Hermes and Apollo said.

**As if on cue, the bull-man bellowed in rage. He picked up Gabe's Camaro by the torn roof, the chassis creaking and groaning. He raised the car over his head and threw it down the road. It slammed into the wet asphalt and skidded in a shower of sparks for about half a mile before coming to a stop. The gas tank exploded.**

**Not a scratch,I remembered Gabe saying.**

**"**HAHAHAHAHAHAH!"The demigods roared in laughter.

"Oops!"Jason and Leo said.

**Oops.**

Jason and Leo started to laugh.

**"Percy," my mom said. "When he sees us, he'll charge. Wait until the last second, then jump out of the way— directly sideways. He can't change directions very well once he's charging. Do you understand?"**

**"How do you know all this?"**

**"I've been worried about an attack for a long time. I should have expected this. I was selfish, keeping you near me."**

"She is not selfish"Poseidon,Hera,and all the other people who knew Sally Jackson protested.

**"Keeping me near you? But—"**

**Another bellow of rage, and the bull-man started tromping uphill.**

**He'd smelled us.**

"Oh No"Everyone whispered.

**The pine tree was only a few more yards, but the hill was getting steeper and slicker, and Grover wasn't getting any lighter.**

"They should have just left me to rot," Grover said.

"Grover," Annabeth said, quietly, "Percy is your best friend. He would never leave you to the Minotaur."Thalia nodded.

Grover sniffed and nodded.

**The bull-man closed in. Another few seconds and he'd be on top of us.**

Everyone leaned in anticipation.

**My mother must've been exhausted, but she shouldered Grover. "Go, Percy! Separate! Remember what I said."**

**I didn't want to split up, but I had the feeling she was right—it was our only chance. I sprinted to the left, turned, and saw the creature bearing down on me. His black eyes glowed with hate. He reeked like rotten meat.**

"Thanks for the info Perce"Nico said,wrinkling his nose.

**He lowered his head and charged, those razor-sharp horns aimed straight at my chest.**

Annabeth gulped.

Poseidon looked really knew there wasn't any way he could escape. His son was defenseless,against a creature that had taken Theseus good years of training and his best weapons to deafeat. How had Percy lived?

**The fear in my stomach made me want to bolt, but that wouldn't work. I could never outrun this thing.**

"Finally!A Sea-spwan that's actually wise!"Athena said in approval and got a glare from Poseidon.

**So I held my ground, and at the last moment, I jumped to the side.**

Poseidon sighd in relief.

**The bull-man stormed past like a freight train, then bellowed with frustration and turned, but not toward me this time, toward my mother, who was setting Grover down in the grass.**

Everyone looked worried,

"Please not her,Please not her"Poseidon said,even though he knew what would he understood his son a little better than he had when Percy was 12.

"You still love her, don't you Poseidon?" Aphroirate said with a sad smile.

Poseidon nodded.

**We'd reached the crest of the hill. Down the other side I could see a valley, just as my mother had said, and the lights of a farmhouse glowing yellow through the rain. But that was half a mile away. We'd never make it.**

"Pesimistic,much?"Piper and Thalia said.

**The bull-man grunted, pawing the ground. He kept eyeing my mother, who was now retreating slowly downhill, back toward the road, trying to lead the monster away from Grover.**

"Brave woman"The gods and demigods said gravely.

**"Run, Percy!" she told me. "I can't go any farther. Run!"**

**But I just stood there, frozen in fear, as the monster charged her. She tried to sidestep, as she'd told me to do, but the monster had learned his lesson. His hand shot out and grabbed her by the neck as she tried to get away. He lifted her as she struggled, kicking and pummeling the air.**

**"Mom!"**

**She caught my eyes, managed to choke out one last word: "Go!"**

**Then, with an angry roar, the monster closed his fists around my mother's neck, and she dissolved before my eyes, melting into light, a shimmering golden form, as if she were a holographic projection. A blinding flash, and she was simply ... gone**

"NO!"Everyone knew all the things Percy Jackson had been through,he didn't deserve this.

"No wonder he looked so pissed when he saw the minatour in the war."Will said"Took the thing straight on"

"Poor sally...Poor Sally"Poseidon said with a deep sadness in his eyes.

Annabeth looked guilty but I didn't know why.

Leo felt sympathetic toward Percy. They had both lost their moms. But Leo thought that was a terrible way for such a nice woman to die.

**Anger replaced my fear. Newfound strength burned in my limbs—the same rush of energy I'd gotten when Mrs. Dodds grew talons.**

"Butt-kicking Percy time!"Nico and The Stolls said in anticipation.

**Percy balled his fist, wishing that this store of energy could have come in time for him to save his mom.**

**The bull-man bore down on Grover, who lay helpless in the grass. The monster hunched over, snuffling my best friend, as if he were about to lift Grover up and make him dissolve too.**

**I couldn't allow that.**

**I stripped off my red rain jacket.**

**"Hey!" I screamed, waving the jacket, running to one side of the monster. "Hey, stupid! Ground beef!"**

Thalia snorted."Ground beef?"She asked.

Clarisse shrugged."I think that's a good insult"She said.

"It sure smelled like ground beef in the war" Jake said.

**"Raaaarrrrr!" The monster turned toward me, shaking his meaty fists.**

**I had an idea—a stupid idea, but better than no idea at all.**

Percy's friends all groned.

"Oh no not one of Percy's ideas"Travis said,shaking his head

"What's so bad about that?"Jason,Leo,and Piper asked.

"Well Percy's Ideas usually work-"Grover started to say.

"But are dangerous and stupid and almost get him killed"The others finished.

"I like his style"Ares said in approval. The Stolls smirked, they were soo showing this to Percy.

**I put my back to the big pine tree and waved my red jacket in front of the bull-man, thinking I'd jump out of the way at the last moment.**

**But it didn't happen like that.**

"Of course it didn't," Annabeth rolled her eyes.

**The bull-man charged too fast, his arms out to grab me whichever way I tried to dodge.**

**Time slowed down.**

**My legs tensed. I couldn't jump sideways, so I leaped straight up, kicking off from the creature's head, using it as a springboard, turning in midair, and landing on his neck.**

**How did I do that?**

"That's what we all want to know!" Leo,The stolls and Nico asked.

**I didn't have time to figure it out. A millisecond later, the monster's head slammed into the tree and the impact nearly knocked my teeth out.**

Everyone grimanced.

**The bull-man staggered around, trying to shake me. I locked my arms around his horns to keep from being thrown. Thunder and lightning were still going strong. The rain was in my eyes. The smell of rotten meat burned my nostrils.**

**"**Again,Thank you for the info cuz"Thalia said

**The monster shook himself around and bucked like a rodeo bull. He should have just backed up into the tree and smashed me flat, but I was starting to realize that this thing had only one gear: forward.**

"Now he knows"Annabeth and Piper said rolling their eyes.

**Meanwhile, Grover started groaning in the grass. I wanted to yell at him to shut up, but the way I was getting tossed around, if I opened my mouth I'd bite my own tongue off.**

**"Food!" Grover moaned.**

The demigods groaned and Grover looked ashamed.

**The bull-man wheeled toward him, pawed the ground again, and got ready to charge. I thought about how he had squeezed the life out of my mother, made her disappear in a flash of light,**

**and rage filled me like high-octane fuel. I got both hands around one horn and I pulled backward with all my might.**

**"**Never going to happen"All the gods-Except for poseidon-said.

"Not even Hercules could do that!"Zeus said.

"Anyone want to bet?"The stolls,Nico and Leo asked innocently.

All the gods_againg minus Poseidon_Betted against Percy.

**The monster tensed, gave a surprised grunt, then—snap!"**WHAT?!"The gods shouted.

Nico,Travis,Connor,and Leo put their hands out expectantly.

The gods grumbled but paid up.

**The bull-man screamed and flung me through the air. I landed flat on my back in the grass. My head smacked against a rock. When I sat up, my vision was blurry, but I had a horn in my hands, a ragged bone weapon the size of a knife.**

**The monster charged.**

**Without thinking, I rolled to one side and came up kneeling. As the monster barreled past, I drove the broken horn straight into his side, right up under his furry rib cage.**

"Without thinking?"Thalia said,"When does he ever think?"

**The bull-man roared in agony. He flailed, clawing at his chest, then began to disintegrate—not like my mother, in a flash of golden light, but like crumbling sand, blown away in chunks by the wind, the same way Mrs. Dodds had burst apart.**

**The monster was gone.**

There was awed silence.

"He killed the minitaour?"Jason asked.

Annabeth nodded.

"With no experience at all?"

"Yep."

Jason was silent. They were all very impressed. Even Poseidon. He didn't know how his son had defeated the minatour.

**The rain had stopped. The storm still rumbled, but only in the distance. I smelled like livestock and my knees were shaking. My head felt like it was splitting open. I was weak and scared and trembling with grief I'd just seen my mother vanish. **

**"**Wimp"Ares glared at him and Poseidon sent another wave.

**I wanted to lie down and cry, but there was Grover, needing my help, so I managed to haul him up and stagger down into the valley, toward the lights of the farm house. I was crying, calling for my mother, but I held on to Grover—I wasn't going to let him go.**

Everyone smiled sadly.

**The last thing I remember is collapsing on a wooden porch, looking up at a ceiling fan circling above me, moths flying around a yellow light, and the stern faces of a familiar-looking bearded man and a pretty girl, her blond hair curled like a princess's.**

They all looked at annabeth.

"Like a princess?"She asked with a smile on her face.

"He also called you pretty"Thalia and Piper pointed out making Annabeth blush and the immature people wolf-whistle.

**"They both looked down at me, and the girl said, "He's the one. He must be."**

"Yes,Annabeth,he is the one"The demigods all said,making Annabeth blush deep red.

**"Silence, Annabeth," the man said. "He's still conscious. Bring him inside."**

"End of chapter"Jason said,"Who's next?"

Before any of them could answer,three more demigods were wearing armor and holding their weapons at looked like they were in the middle of a battle.

Jason could instantly recognize the 2 girls but not the guy,they were all clearly Roman,though.

And Leo recognized them to be the people from his dream...

**Liked it?Please Review!Thanks soo much for reading!:).I'll update as soon as I can!Any request or suggestions,please let me know!:D**


	7. Romans and Jelaousy

**The HoO Read The Lightning Thief;Chapter 7**

**(Sorry I haven't updated in a while :(.I was burried in homework :/ I hope you guys like this chapter!I'll try to update tommorow too!BTW, today is my birthday!:)**

-Reyna-

Today started out pretty well for me. I slept peacefully for the first time in ages, and I guess I owe that to what happened yesterday.

My world was about to become a living hell yesterday,if Octavian had gotten to be Praetor.

But the day was literary saved by Hazel,Frank, and obiously Percy. That day we were invaded by the Giants army and we were about to be beaten,but then Percy came ridding on a hellhound (Which is his pet 0.0),Hazel ridding on a beautiful and fast horse, and Frank came by turning into an eagle (Wtf?).

They had brought back a bunch of Imperial Gold weapons,came back alive from their quest but had somehow found and returned our golden Eagle!But the surprises didn't stop there.

During the battle,while we were whipping their asses may I add, a hundred Amazons came ridding into the battle and when the giant said they were his allies,my heart sank.

But then I heard my sister's voice,"To my sister's aid!" and looked at Percy with awe. He had talked to my sister and gotten the Amazons to come and help us!

After the battle,when Percy by himself (and a gods ditached head) defeated the giant Polybotes, he was raised on a shield and I chanted along with the other Legioners for him to become Praetor. All the Amazons,Legioners, and even those silly fauns celebrated our triumph.

I was extremly relieved,not only because we had won but because I would not have Octavian as a partner. I knew Percy was a good guy. He was fair,just, and he radiated strength and power. His aura was,in a way, almost god like.

I was also guilty because I knew that Jason wasn't and couldn't be dead,and I dont think he would like the thought of us having another Praetor...

All in all,though, I was happy to not have to deal with guiding the Romans by myself. Per y was clearly a fair leader, and everyone at camp respected him.I knew I did.

Now back to the present.

I was walking through camp with a big smileon my face. While I was walking, I found Percy walking around the Fields Of Mars.I walked toward him and after a while,decided to talk to him.

"Hello Percy"I said with a smile.

He turned to look at me and when he saw I was smiling,he looked surprised, but then smiled back.

"Wow,I have never seen you smile Reyna"He said teasingly.

I rolled my eyes but my smile did not go away,"I was in a serious cituation Percy"I reminded him.

"Well so am I but I'm still smiling"He contered with a mock-serious expression.

I shook my head and laughed.

"Gods,the world is ending!Reyna just laughed!"Percy said,dramaticly waving his hands in the air.

I tried to glare at him,but my laughing won't stop,"I laugh!"I protested.

We laughed in silence and I looked around thoughtfully.

Percy was right,I hadn't laughed in soo long. Ever since Jason dissapeared. But Percy got me laughing again, he made me see the bright side.

"I know you feel guilty"He said quietly.

I stared at him in wonder and asked,"How did you know?"

He shrugged and said,"I'm cool like that". I shoved him playfully, but he continued.

"You don't have to feel guilty he's not gone. And when he comes back, everything will be the same here"He said.

"No it won't be the see, all aroung us things about us we tend to grow appart. And besides,not all will be the you're the Praetor here now"I reminded him.

Frankly,I didn't know if I wanted things to be the same her. If Jason was in the Greek camp as Percy had claimed, he might be might have changed from the Jason I knew to another guy, a complete stranger.

"Yes it will Reyna.I can't deny the guy his Praetorship. And you know I can't stay either" Percy said.

I knew that Percy was Greek,he belonged with his family.I also didn't want him to go,but I would never admit that. Percy had brought happyness into our camp, and by bringing back our eagle he had become our hero. And by defeating the giant alone (but with a detached god's head) he had become legendary. I couldn't deny that I had feelings for him either.

I was about to say something to him but just then,Hazel and Frank ran up to us,out of breath.

"What's up guys?"Percy asked with concern.

I smiled widely. Percy was so loyal to his friends. He simply radieted trust and loyalty,the marks of a true and honorary Roman.

"Hey. We came to tell you that Dakota was asking for you"Frank said.

"Said it was about Kool-Aid"Hazel said with a small smile.

"Oh snap,now I know it's serious"Percy said sarcasticlly.

We all laughed and he said,"Well better go check,see ya later!"

"See you later,Percy"I called.

He stopped for a moment and said,hesitantly,"My friends call me Perce!"

I smiled and said,"Well go on then,Perce"

He walked away and I was left with Frank and Hazel.

"Well, we'll see you-"Hazel began to say,but was caught off when a hellhound (Not Percy's pet) came bounding toward us with a murderous look.

We all drew our weapons ( they have their weapons with them wherever they go)and waited for the monster to attack.

We braced ourselves but after a while,nothing came.

We opened our eyes and saw that we were in a beautiful white room.

"Reyna?!Hazel?!"A familiar voice called behind us.

We all turned to see Jason Grace,our missing Praetor staring at us in shock.

"JASON!"We both (Me and Hazel) shouted.

(**Frank doesn't know Jason yet because they hadn't met in CJ)**

Hazel ran up to Jason and gave him a huge hug. He hugged her back and smiled at us.

I turned to look at my surroundings.

We were in a white were twelve tall thrones,and I immediately knew we were in Olympus.

Frank,Hazel, and I bowed before the twelve Olympian gods. I knew they weren't Roman. They were in their Greek aspect.

"Introduce Yourselves"The god on the highest throne,who I guessed was Jupiter or Zeus,ordered.

I stepped forward and said,"I am Reyna,daughter of Bellona, and Praetor of the Twelveth Legion".I noticed that a pretty girl behind me was glaring at me a little but let it go.

"Frank Zhang,son of Mars"Frank said stepping forward.

"Hazel Levesque,daughter of Pluto"Hazel said.

I looked at the other people in the room.

There were two identical boys with curly brown hair and mischievious smirks.I immediately knew they were sons of Mercury/Hermes.

There was a very buff-looking girl with stingy brown hair,wearing battle armor,with an unfriendly smirk on her face.

Next to the girl was a good-looking guy, with culy brown-black hair,a small smile and a friendly expression. He had his arms around the buff-looking girl so they must be together.

Next to them was a pretty red-haired girl who had green eyes,a friendly smile, and was the only one in the room who didn't seem surprised by our apperance. She wore a red T-shirt and jeans with paint stains on them.

Next to her was a pale skinned boy who was about 12-14 years wore all-black cloth and had an aura of fear and the smell of death around him. I immediately recognized him as Nico Di Angelo, Hazel's brother. I didn't know why he was here with the Greeks but I was going to have a talk with him later.

Next to him was a beautiful girl with electric blue eyes like Jason's,with short black hair, wearing a "Death to Barbie" shirt. She looked like the type of person I might get along with.

Behind her was a beautiful girl (the one who was glaring at me).She had a Cherokee complextion,brown hair with braids in the side. And it seemed like her eyes were changing color. She was wearing an orange T-shirt with blue jeans.

Next to her was a beautiful girl who looked my age (16).She had golden-blonde curls,she was tall,with a golden tan,an athletic look,and pretty stormy gray eyes.

"Reyna,how is the camp?Is everyone alright?"Jason asked me.I noticed that he held hands with the girl who had been glaring at me. This made me both mad and jelaous but I kept those feelings in check.

"Oh yeah,were all just battled a giants army,but why would that be wrong?"I said with sarcasm in my voice.

" OOHH! That 's a low blow!"The twins said at the same time.

Jason gave me a sad look and said,"Sorry I wasn't there to help the camp. We must have lost many Legionares in the lost battle".

I stared at him in anger and said,"Oh just because YOU weren't there Jason doesn't mean we lost!"

Jason stared at me with a mixture of shock and hurt in his eyes.

"Did we win?"He asked with shock and hesitation in his voice.

I smiled and said,"Our new Preator led us to victory of course".

Jason turned a bit pale and whispered,"New Preator?You have a new Preator?!"

I felt bad for telling him like this so I spoke in a softer and kinder tone.

"Yes we do. We had to get one by the Feast Of Fortuna. That was yesterday. You know we had to do that even if we knew you were alive"

"Not Octavian?!"Jason asked with an incredulous look.

"No",I said with a small smile,"His name is Percy Jackson"

-Jason-

I felt like my world was pulled under my feet.

I wasn't Preator of the Legion anymore,they didn't need me.

My friends and family had to face a giants army!And I wasn't there to help them!

And now,they have replaced me!Replaced me!

And they replaced me with Percy stupid Jackson.

What was so great about that stupid,Greek, son of Poseidon?!(**Everything)**

Everyone thought he was special and relied on him. Everyone seemed to love Reyna,the professional Praetor (and his old crush), got a small smile and her eyes grew bright at the mention of Jackson. And the Greeks and Romans weren't even supposed to get along!

Jason hated this guy for taking his Preatorship,his Roman friends, and Jason knew it was Jackson's fault the Greek camp was so sad.

And yet,_everyone loved_ Percy, they were awed by him,looked up to to him. In comparison,Jason was a nobody.

The gods cleared their throats.

"We shall continue with the reading now"Zeus said.

I don't want to hear more about_ his_ life,Jason thought, but of course everyone ignored him.

"What reading?"The guy named Frank asked.

"We are all reading a book about Percy's life"Piper explained stiffly to them.

Annabeth had gone to Reyna and Hazel to ask about what had happened to Percy during his time in the roman. Of course she was worried about Him,Jason thought bitterly.

-Reyna-

After watching Jason's reaction to the news,the blonde girl in the group came to me and Hazel and started talking to us.

"Do you guys know Percy?"She asked us.

" Yes we do. Who are you?"I asked kindly.

"You are Annabeth,aren't you?"Hazel asked in a voice full of curiousity.

"Yes I am"The girl,Annabeth, said in surprise,"How did you know?"

"Percy told me and Frank alot about you. He loves you very much"Hazel said with a smile.

Annabeth blushed and returned the smile."He remembers me?"Annabeth asked.

"Yes"I said.I remembered when Percy declined the offer of being Preator when I offered it to him,he said he had a girlfriend.

I didn't know what I was feeling.I was relieved,angry,bitter, and yes, a little jealous.

"We shall get back to the reading now"Zeus said.

"What reading?"Frank asked.

"We are reading a book about Percy's life"The cherokee girl explained.

Annabeth explained what had happened in the book to me,Hazel, and Frank.

"Oh Percy..."Hazel said with concern written on her face.

"That's awesome"Frank said with wide eyes,"I guess it doesn't surprise me"He said grinnig.

I smiled and said,"Only Perce.."

-Jason-

SHE CALLED HIM PERCE?!  
What the Hades was going on?!

Did Reyna like this guy?

She probably did,I thought bitterly,just like everyone else.

Percy Jackson. It is officially on.

-Annabeth-

At first,I was a little jelaous of Reyna.

She was beautiful and she looked like she had feelings for Percy.

But when Hazel said he loved me and remembered me, all of my fears melted and even more love than I felt for him coursed through me.

"Only Perce..."Reyna said shaking her head.

Oh Percy,I thought, what have you done in this camp?

-Leo-

Damn!  
Percy Jackson is officially my extreme idol!  
Every single girl in this room (minus Piper) seem to love the guy!

Even the 2 Roman girls seemed to love the guy!

I had to meet him soon or I'm gonna explode! I need to learn how he did it!

-Poseidon-

(**Yeah Gods get Povs too)**

I couldn't help smilling in pride at the love all (or most) of the love that people had for Percy.

My son was was a rare hero.

And everyone in the room,even Artemis, respected him.

My son was the best!And I couldn't wait to rub it in the faces of my idiot brothers!

**I hope you guys liked the chapter!:)**


	8. Chapter 8

**Hey guys! Sorry I haven't been able to update these last few weeks but my computers messed up so I dechided to update with my iPad. I hope you like this chapter! And thank you to all those people who reviewed! Thanks so much for reading please review! **

3rd person's P.O.V

"Now, who shall read?" Zeus asked,dramatically.

"I will" Ares' daughter, Clarisse says, taking the book.

**"I play Pinocle with a horse" **Clarisse read.

**I had weird dreams full of barnyard animals. Most wanted to kill me. The rest wanted food.**

****"Percy say what?" Will said,confused.

"Mr. Solace, I believe that mister Jackson said that some barnyard animals, such as his friend, Grover Goat Boy, we're either trying to kill him or eat" Travis explained with a teacher-like voice.

Everyone started laughing and Will blushed.

"Percy has some pretty weird dreams,even for a demigod" Piper said with a smile.

"And that's not the weirdest dream he's ever had" Annabeth said.

**I must have woken up several times, but what I heard and saw made no sense, so I just passed out again. I remembered lying in a soft bed, being spoon-fed something that tasted like buttered popcorn,only it was pudding.**

****"Ambrosia and Nector right?" Piper asked.

"Yep" Thalia said.

"So it tastes like buttered popcorn to him?" Travis asked curiously.

"I guess so" Annabeth said shrugging.

"I wonder why.." Hermes said.

**The girl with curly blonde hair hovered over me, smirking as she scraped drips off my chin with the spoon.**

**When she saw my eyes open, she asked,"what will happen in the summer solstice?"**

****"Annabeth Chase, all mighty daughter of Athena doesn't know something! Oh gods! The world is gonna end!" Connor said waving hishands around.

"Goodbye cruel world!"Travis said dramatically.

All demigods chuckled at them and the gods looked amused.

**I managed to choke out,"What?"**

The demigods who knew Percy smirked.

**She looked around, as if afraid someone would overhear,"what's going on? What's been stolen? We only have a few weeks!"**

****"You're just confusing him even more Angela" Dionysus said in a bored voice.

"Annabeth. I know I was.." Annabeth said with a little guilt in her voice.

"It's ok Annie, you just didn't know he was such a Kelp Head" Thalia said.

"He's a Seaweed Brain,Thals. And don't call me Annie!"Annabeth said with a smile.

"Whatever floats your boat Annie." Thalia said with a smirk.

"I'm surprised D is even paying attention" Hermes said.

"Well since I got nothing better to do I might as well listen to Peter Johnson's story" Dionysus said.

"What was stolen? Is that why dad is so mad?"Jason asked.

"Well, roman nephew, your father is usually annoying, so it's no surprise the weather is messed up" Hades said.

"You forgot to mention dramatic" Poseidon said with a smirk.

"Shut up" Zeus grumbled.

"So that's how you met Percy?" Reyna asked annabeth.

" Yep" she said with a smile.

Reyna's P.O.V

**"I'm sorry",I mumbled,"I don't ...".**

**Somebody knocked on the door and the girl filled my mouth with pudding.**

****"Nice way to get him to shut up"Thalia said.

"Only way to keep men quiet" Artemis said.

"HEY!" the men in the room protested.

"You know I'm right!" Artemis argued.

The guys grumbled but didn't reply.

**Next time I woke up, the girl was gone.**

****"Aww, miss her already" Travis and Connteas aid teasingly to Annabeth.

"Shut up" Annabeth snapped but she was bpushing bright red.

Athena groaned and shook her head while Poseidon and Hermes smiled.

**A husky dude like a suffer, stood in the corner of the bedroom watching over me. He had blue eyes-at least a dozen of them-on his cheeks, forehead, and the back of his hands.**

****"Argus"Hera said smiling.

**When I finally came around for good, there was nothing weird about my surrounding, except that they were nicer than I was used to. I was sitting in a deck chair on a huge porch, gazing across a meadow at green hills in the distance. The breeze smelled like strawberries.**

**There was a blanket over my legs, a pillow behind my neck. All that was great, but my mouth felt like a scorpion had been using it for a nest. My tongue was dry and nasty and every one of my teeth hurt.**

"I feel that way all the time." Dionysus stated.

"Why?"Travis, conor andLeo asked.

"Well I am the god of wine Leonardo,Carlos,and Tom"Dionysus replied. "I get hung over all the time."

"My names not Lorenzo it's-"

"Did he just call me-"

" At least Tom is ok"

"Yes, yes, I know what your name is Lloyd. Yes I did call you Carlos." Dionysus said impatiently.

"But-"

"Leo," Rachel said. "Just drop it. He does that to everyone."

"Does what Rita?" Dionysus asked. No answer. "Read on Claire."

**On the table next to me was a tall drink. It looked like iced apple juice, with a green straw and a paper parasol stuck through a maraschino cherry.**

I could go for a drink right now, Dionysus thought.

**My hand was so weak. I almost dropped the glass once I got my fingers around it.**

**"Careful," a familiar voice said.**

**Grover was leaning against the porch railing, looking like he hadn't slept in a week.**

**Under one arm, he cradled a shoe box. He was wearing blue jeans, Converse hi-tops and a bright orange T-shirt that said CAMP HALF-BLOOD. Just plain old Grover. Not the goat boy.**

Chris chuckled. Thalia smirked at Grover.

"Even Percy agrees with us" Thalia pointed out.

Grover sighed," When are you going to stop calling me that?"

"When you stop being a Goat Boy" Thalia said.

his eyes and pouted as all the demigods laughed.

I was starting to like Percy's family. They were obviously very close and it looked like they had a nice sense of humor. Just like Percy.

**So maybe I'd had a nightmare. Maybe my mom was okay. We were still on vacation, and we'd stopped here at this big house for some reason. And . . .**

Poseidon looked sad.

I couldn't believe that Percy lost his mom like that. He was such a nice guy, he didn't deserve that. But when he was in the roman camp, he didn't look like the type of guy whohead lost his mother. And I had seen plenty of people who had.

**"You saved my life," Grover said. "I . . . well, the least I could do . . . I went back to the hill. I thought you might want this."**

**Reverently, he placed the shoe box in my lap.**

**Inside was a black-and-white bull's horn, the base jagged from being broken off, the tip splattered with dried blood. It hadn't been a nightmare.**

****"Sadly" Poseidon said with a sad look in his eyes.

Lord Poseidon looked a lot like his son. He had Percy's green eyes and his jet black hair. Seeing Percy's dad made Reyna curious, if anyone knew about the things Percyhard done before the roman camp it would be his father and annabeth.

**"The Minotaur," I said.**

**"Um, Percy, it isn't a good idea-"**

****"Nobody listens to me" Grover' said with a sigh.

"Sorry goat boy" Thalia and annabeth said together.

"That's** what they call him in the Greek myths, isn't it?" I demanded. "The Minotaur, Half man, half bull."**

**Grover shifted uncomfortably. "You've been out for two days. How much do you remember?"**

**"My mom. Is she really . . ."**

**He looked down.**

**I stared across the meadow. There were groves of trees, a winding stream, acres of strawberries spread out under the blue sky. The valley was surrounded by rolling hills, and the tallest one, directly in front of us, was the one with the huge pine tree on top. Even that looked beautiful in the sunlight.**

"What's that supposed to mean?" Thalia questioned. No one dared answered her.

**My mother was gone. The whole world should be black and cold. Nothing should look beautiful.**

"Wow." Katie said. "Percy can be deep when he wants to."

"Hell yeah" Travis said

"We all can" Connor added.

**"I'm sorry," Grover sniffled. "I'm a failure. I'm-I'm the worst satyr in the world."**

"No you are not!"All the campers and, surprisingly, Poseidon protested.

Grover blushed.

"You have protected my son, found the lost pan, and helped tremendously in the war with the Titans" Poseidon said firmly.

"T-Thank you,Lord Poseidon" Grover stuttered.

Poseidon smiled at the satyr.

"Wow, who knew Poseidon actually knows who to comfort people" Athena said in shock.

"I expected as much, for Percy's dad" Hazel and Frank said quietly, so only I could hear. I smiled and saw that Lord Poseidon was smiling at them.

**He moaned, stomping his foot so hard it came off. I mean, the Converse hi-top came off. The inside was filled with Styrofoam, except for a hoof-shaped hole.**

**"Oh, Styx!" he mumbled.**

"What does that mean?" Rachel asked.

Everyone shrugged.

" Demigod bad word" Nico suggested.

"Oh"

**Thunder rolled across the clear sky.**

**As he struggled to get his hoof back in the fake foot, I thought, Well, that settles it.**

**Grover was a satyr. I was ready to bet that if I shaved his curly brown hair, I'd find tiny horns on his head. But I was too miserable to care that satyrs existed, or even minotaurs.**

**All that meant was my mom had been squeezed into nothingness, dissolved into yellow light.**

Sudenly Aphrodite started to cry.

"He..Is... So... Cute!"

Everyone rolled their eyes and the Cherokee girl,whose name I learned was piper, looked embarrassed.

**I was alone. An orphan. I would have to live with . . . Smelly Gabe?**

All the gods and demigods snorted.

"Live with Gabe my ass" Hermes and his kids said.

"Hm, the day I let Percy live with that asshole is the day Zeus stops being dramatic queen" Poseidon said menacingly.

Everyone bit back a laugh at Zeus's expression.

**No. That would never happen. I would live on the streets fist. I would pretend I was seventeen and join the army.**

Ares scoffed. "Like that would ever happen. He's too weak, especially whewe're was twelve. Nobody would believe him". Lord Ares, who I was beginning to disliked, got a wave of ice cold sea water as a response.

**I'd do something.**

**Grover was still sniffling. The poor kid-poor goat, satyr, whatever**

"Wow,Percy"Chris said.

**-looked as if he expected to be hit.**

**I said, "It wasn't your fault."**

**"Yes, it was. I was supposed to **_**protect**_** you."**

**"Did my mother ask you to protect me?"**

**"No. But that's my job. I'm a keeper. At least . . . I was. Don't strain yourself," Grover said. "Here."**

**He helped me hold my glass and put the straw to my lips.**

**I recoiled at the taste, because I was expecting apple juice. It wasn't that at all. It was my chocolate-chip cookies. Liquid cookies. And not just any cookies-but my mom's homemade blue chocolate-chip cookies, buttery and hot, with the ships still melting.**

****"So that's what he tastes when he drinks it?" Nico asked.

"Guess so"

"Mrs. Jackson's cookies..." Tarvis and Connor said in a dreamy voice.

"Sooo good..."Thalia said.

Annabeth rolled her eyes but smiled a little sadly.

**Drinking it, my whole body felt warm and good, full of energy. My grief didn't go away, but I felt as if my mom had just brushed her hand against my cheek, given me a cookie the way she used to when I was small, and told me everything was going to be okay.**

The demigods smiled sadly. Poor Percy.

**Before I knew it, I'd drained the glass. I stared into it, sure I'd just had a warm drink, but the ice cubes hadn't even melted.**

**"Was it good?" Grover asked.**

**I nodded.**

**"What did it taste like?" He sounded so wistful, I felt guilty.**

**"Sorry," I said. "I should've let you taste."**

**His eyes got wide. "No! That's not what I meant. I just . . . wondered."**

**"Chocolate-chip cookies," I said. "My mom's. Homemade."**

**He sighed. "And how do you feel?"**

**"Like I could throw Nancy Bobofit a hundred yards."**

"Is that good?" Jason asked.

"For Percy, probably." Annabeth answered. "For Nancy, no."

"I want to see it happen though" Leo,The Stolls, nico, and Thalia grumbled.

"Bobadafit..." The Stolls said smirking.

Everyone started laughed.

**"That's good," He said. "That's good, I don't think you could risk drinking any more of that stuff."**

**"What do you mean?"**

**He took the empty glass from me gingerly, as if it were dynamite, and set it back on the table. "Come on. Chiron and Mr. D are waiting."**

**The porch wrapped all the way around the farmhouse.**

**My legs felt wobbly, trying to walk that far. Grover offered to carry the Minotaur horn, but I held on to it. I'd paid for that souvenir the hard way. I wasn't going to let it go.**

****Everyone frowned. " So that's what's hugging in his cabin wall?" Nico asked.

"Yes" Grover and Annabeth said.

I narrowed my eyes, how did nico know how Percy's cabin in the Greek camp look like?

"You've gone to the other camp, haven't you Nico?" I asked him.

He gulped and said,"Yes Reyna".

"WHAT?!" the Greek campers shouted at Nico.

He flinched and raised his hands."My dad took me there so I cantake hazel where she belonged! " he said.

"You could have told us about Percy being there these past months nico! You saw how worried all of us were! Why didn't you tell us?!"Annabeth asked with anger in her voice.

"I know how worried we are for Percy, but I couldn't do anything. You know you can't change fate annabeth! Percy had to find his own way back!"

"And what do you mean these past few months?" I demanded," Percy has only been in Camp Jupiter for a week!"

Jason turned on me."What?! And you gave him Praetorship when he was only there a week?! Do you know how many years it toget for me to get praetorship?" He asked.

I looked at him with cold eyes,"I don't care how long it took you. If wasn't for Percy we would all be dead!"

"The camp would have been taken by monsters Jason! We would have all been killed!"Hazel explained.

"But of course Jason doesn't care about that! All he does is blame me for giving Percy praetorship along with everyone at camp! Well tell you what Grace, Percy Jackson saved our camp, so everyone naturally wanted him to be praetor! What's more important: Praetorship or the fact that the camp was saved?" I said, fury in my voice.

Jason looked ashamed but he kept quiet. I asked Clarisse if she could keep reading.

* * *

Jason's P.O.V

Reynas words played again in my head.

Why did I have to be such jello aloud guy?

Percy had saved my home and here I was,angry and jealous of him just because the camp wanted him to be praetor.

But a small part of me couldn't help thinking.

_How could reyna say this to me? me of all people? She only said it because she prefers Jackson. That stupid Greek,taking my leadership and my friends.. Who did he think he was?_

**As we came around the opposite end of the house, I caught my breath.**

**"**Camp is soo awesome" Connor bragged.

**We must've been on the north shore of Long Island, because on this side of the house, the valley marched all the way up to the water, which glittered about a mile in the distance. Between here and there, I simply couldn't process everything I was seeing. The landscape was dotted with buildings that looked like ancient Greek architecture**

"Because it is." Annabeth said thinking about her new designs.

Reyna's P.O.V

Despite my fight with Jason, I couldnt help wonder how the Greek camp looked like.

**-an open-air pavilion, and amphitheater, a circular arena- except that they all looked brand new, their white marble columns sparkling in the sun. In a nearby sandpit, a dozen high school-age kids and satyrs played volleyball. Canoes glided across a small lake. Kids in bright orange T-shirts like Grover's were chasing each other around a cluster of cabins nestled in the woods. Some shot targets at an archery range. Others rode horses down a wooded trail, and, unless I was hallucinating, some of their horses had wings.**

**Down at the end of the porch, two men sat across from each other at a card table. The blond-haired girl who'd spoon-fed me popcorn-flavored pudding was leaning on the porch rail next to them.**

"Annabeth, what are you doing there?"Hermes asked teasingly.

"Could it be to see a dark haired green eyed boy,perhaps?"Connor said wriggling his eyebrows at Annabeth

"Noo, she's there to see Leonardo" Travis said sarcastically.

Leo and Annabeth blushed and everyone laughed at them.

**The man facing me was small, but porky. He had a red nose, big watery eyes, and curly hairs so black it was almost purple. He looked like those paintings of baby angels-what do you call them, hubbubs? No, cherubs. That's it. He looked like a cherub who'd turn middle-aged in a trailer park.**

"EXCUSE ME?" Dionysus roared. Everyone suppressed their laughter.

"Well it's true, you old drunk" Ares said earning a glare from the wine god.

**He wore a tiger-pattern Hawaiian shirt, and he would've fit right in one of Gabe's poker party, except I got the feeling this guy could've out-gambled even my step father.**

"Of course. That mortal's got nothing on me" Dionyssus replied,smirking but still mad about the description.

**"That's Mr. D." Grover murmured to me. "He's the camp director. Be polite.**

****the campers who knew Percy, Hazel,Frank and Reyna rolled their eyes.

Leo, Piper, and Jason looked at them and Leo asked,"What?

"Percys not what you call polite to people he doesn't like" Annabeth explained.

I smiled, Percy was the same in the Greek campand in camp Jupiter.

**The girl, that's Annabeth Chase. She's just a camper,**

Annabeth raised an eyebrow at this.

**but she's been here longer than just about anybody.**

Clarisse scoffed. "Nine years is a long time."

**And you already know Chiron . . ."**

**He pointed at the guy whose back was to me.**

**First, I realized he was sitting in the wheelchair. Then I recognized the tweed jacket, the thinning brown hair, the scraggly beard.**

**"Mr. Brunner!" I cried.**

**The Latin teacher turned and smiled at me. His eyes had that mischievous glint they sometimes got in class when he pulled a pop quiz and made all the multiple choice B.**

"Only Chiron would do that." Rachel smiled. All Greek campers nodded.

Chiron smiled at them.

**"Ah, good, Percy. Now we have four for pinochle."**

**He offered me a chair to the right of Mr. D, who looked at me with bloodshot eyes and heaved a great sigh.**

Just like he was doing now, seething with anger too.

**"Oh, I suppose I must say it. Welcome to Camp Half-Blood. There. Now, don't expect me to be glad to see you."**

**"Uh, thanks." I scooted a little farther away from him because, if there was something I had learned from living with Gabe, it as how to tell when an adult had been hitting the happy juice.**

Dionysus sighed contentedly.

**If Mr. D was a stranger to alcohol, I was a satyr.**

"HAHAHA" everyone roared with laughter.

"He's soo right" Hermes and Apollo said.

**"Annabeth?" Mr. Brunner called to the blond girl.**

"Still the blonde girl?" Annabeth asked with exasperation in her voice.

"Would you prefer him to call you, the brunette, Annie?"Thalia asked.

"Shut up Thalia"Annabeth said, crossing her arms.

**She came forward and Mr. Brunner introduced us.**

**"This young lady nursed you back to health, Percy. Annabeth, my dear, why don't you go check on Percy's bunk? We'll be putting him in cabin eleven for now."**

****"HERMES CABIN RULES!"The Hermes campers and Hermes cheered.

**Annabeth said, "Sure, Chiron."**

**She was probably my age, maybe a couple of inches taller, and a whole lot more athletic looking. With her deep tan and her curly blond hair, she was almost exactly what I thought a stereotypical California girl would look like,**

Annabeth's blush got bigger at this.

"Aww" Hazel,Thalia and even I teased.

Annabeths cheeks were flaming red by now.

**except her eyes ruined the image.**

It soon faded after this. "Ruined the image? What does that mean?"

"It means," Nico started. "That your eyes are not what Percy thought was the usual California girl look"

Annabeth smiled.

"Or it could mean he hates your eye color" He finished.

"I'm going to ignore that comment Nico." Annabeth said.

**They were startling gray, like storm clouds; pretty, but intimidating, too, as if she were analyzing the best way to take me down in a fight.**

Annabeth smiled.

Aphrodite bounced up with joy.

I couldn't help but feeling jealous of annabeth, Percy obviously liked her already.

Athena looked like she didnt really like the way Percy saw her daughter.

**She glanced at the minotaur horn in my hands, then back at me. I imagined she was going to say, **_**You killed a minotaur! or Wow, you're so awesome! or something like that.**_

"Like you would say that." Thalia scoffed.

"Conseited much?" Jason said.

Everyone (minus two or three gods) glared at him.

**Instead she said, "You drool when you sleep."**

Thalia grinned. "That's all you could think of to say?"

Annabeth rolled her eyes. "And what else was I supposed to say? What he was thinking?"

**Then she sprinted off down the lawn, her blond hair flying behind her.**

"Oooh! He has a crush!" Aphrodite said.

Everyone rolled their eyes at her.

Piper shook her head and groaned,"Mom!"

**"So," I said, anxious to change the subject, "You, uh, work here, Mr. Brunner?"**

**"Not Mr. Brunner," the ex-Mr. Brunner said. "I'm afraid that was a pseudonym. You may call me Chiron."**

**"Okay." Totally confused, I looked at the director. "And Mr. D . . . does that stand for something?"**

**Mr. D stopped shuffling the cards. He looked at me like I'd just belched loudly. "Young man, names are powerful things. You don't just go around using them for no reason."**

**"Oh. Right, Sorry."**

**"I must say, Percy," Chiron-Brunner broke in, "I'm glad to see you alive. It's been a long time since I've made a house call to a potential camper. I'd hate to think I've wasted my time."**

**"House call?"**

**"My year at Yancy Academy, to instruct you. We have satyrs at most schools, of course, keeping a lookout. But Grover alerted me as soon as he met you. He sensed you were something special, so I decided to come upstate.** **I convinced the other Latin teacher to . . . ah, take a leave of absence."**

**I tried to remember the beginning of the school year. It seemed like so long ago, but I did have a fuzzy memory of there being another Latin teacher my first week at Yancy. Then, without explanation, he had disappeared and Mr. Brunner had taken the class.**

**"You came to Yancy just to teach me?" I asked.**

"So this is where his ego came from." Thalia said.

"Apparently." Nico agreed.

"Not true" a lot of people said.

**Chiron nodded. "Honestly, I wasn't sure about you at first. We contacted your mother, let her know we were keeping an eye on you in case you were ready for Camp Half-Blood. But you still had so much to learn. Nevertheless, you made it here alive, and that's always the first test."**

**"Grover," Mr. D said impatiently, "are you playing or not?"**

**"Yes, sir!" Grover trembled as he took the fourth chair, though I didn't know why he should be so afraid of a pudgy little man in a tiger-print Hawaiian shirt.**

The room burst into laughter. Dionysus huffed and glared at the book.

"**You**_** do**_** know how to play pinochle?" Mr. D eyes me suspiciously.**

**"I'm afraid not," I said.**

**"I'm afraid not, **_**sir,**_**" he said.**

**"Sir," I repeated. I was liking the camp director less and less.**

"Same here." Dionysus grumbled.

"Wow, Percy called him sir" the Stolls,Grover, Thalia, nico,Hazel, and frank said.

**"Well," he told me, "it is, along with gladiator fighting and Pac-Man, one of the greatest games ever invented by humans. I would expect all**_** civilized**_** young men to know the rules."**

**"I'm sure the boy can learn," Chiron said.**

**"Please," I said, "what is this place? What am I doing here? Mr. Brun-Chiron-why would you go to Yancy Academy just to teach me?"**

**Mr. D snorted. "I asked the same question."**

**The camp director dealt the cards, Grover flinched every time one landed on his pile.**

**Chiron smiled at me sympathetically, the way he used to in Latin class, as if to let me know that no matter what my average was, I was his star student. He expected me to have the right answer.**

**"Percy," he said. "Did you mother tell you nothing?"**

**"She said . . ." I remembered her sad eyes, looking out over the sea. "She told me she was afraid to send me here, even though my father had wanted her to. She said that once I was here, I probably couldn't leave. She wanted to keep me close to her."**

Nico said,"But with kelp head, nothing goes as planed"

"True that" Clarisse mumbled

Thalia grinned and punched Nico in the shoulder. "Shut up Nico."

**"Typical," Mr. D said. "That's how they usually get killed. Young man, are you bidding or not?"**

**"What?" I asked.**

**He explained, impatiently, how you bid in pinochle, and so I did.**

**"I'm afraid there's too much to tell," Chiron said. "I'm afraid our usual orientation film won't be sufficient."**

**"Orientation film?" I asked.**

****"He didn't watch it?!" Annabeth asked right when I asked,"Orientation film?"

"No he didn't watch it and yes we have a orientation film" Chiron responded.

**"No," Chiron decided. "Well, Percy. You know your friend Grover is a satyr. You know"-he pointed to the horn in the shoe box-"that you have killed the Minotaur. No small feat, either lad.**

"We all know", Annabeth said,"But Percy has done more impressive things". I could definitely hear pride in her voice.

"Yep. Percy is an ultimate monster-fighting,Titan-slaying beast!"The Stolls announced.

Poseidon beamed along with half of the gods. Are, Athena, Zues,Hera and Hades

All just rolled their eyes.

**What you may not know is that great powers are at work in your life. Gods-the forces you call the Greek gods-are very much alive."**

"Don't forget the Roman gods too." Hazel, Frank, and I said with smiles.

**I stared at the others around the table.**

**I waited for somebody to yell, **_**No!**_** But all I got was Mr. D yelling, "Oh, a royal marriage. Trick! Trick!" He cackled as he tallied up his points.**

Dionysus got really excited, maybe he was finally going to beat that centaur!

**"Mr. D," Grover asked timidly, "if you're not going to eat it, can I have your Diet Coke can?"**

**"Eh? Oh, all right."**

**Grover bit a huge shard out of the empty aluminum can and chewed it mournfully.**

"I tried that once," Apollo said with a disgusted look."It. Was. Disgusting."

"Um, Im gonna regret It, but why would you ever try eating that dad?" Will solace asked.

"Lost a bet with Hermes" Apollo said and we all nodded, losing a bet with a son of Hermes was bad, but with hermes himself... I wouldn't want to be in that position.

**"Wait," I told Chiron. "You're telling me there's such a thing as God."**

**"Well, now," Chiron said. "God-capital **_**G**_**, God. That's a different matter altogether. We shan't deal with the metaphysical."**

**"Metaphysical? But you were just talking about-"**

**"Ah, gods, plural, as in, great beings that control the forces of nature and human endeavors: the immortal gods of Olympus. That's a smaller matter."**

**"Smaller?"**

"Smaller?!" All the god asked Dionysus.

**"Yes, quite. The gods we discussed in Latin class."**

**"Zeus," I said. "Hera. Apollo. You mean them."**

"I'm awesome." Apollo said. He stuck his tongue out to Artemis and said,"Ha he didn't mention you!"

Artemis rolled her eyes and said under her breath, things that sounded like,"Idiot adopted twin" and "boys"

**And there it was again-distant thunder on a cloudless day.**

**"Young man," said Mr. D, "I would really be less casual about throwing those names around, if I were you."**

**"But they're stories," I said. "They're-myths, to explain lightning and the seasons and stuff. They're what people believed before there was science."**

"**Science!" Mr. D scoffed. "And tell me, Perseus Jackson"-I flinched when he said my real name, which I never told anybody-**

Thalia smiled mischievously "I like annoying him with it."

"He didn't even tell me his full name was Perseus" Grover said pouting.

"Wait, his full name is Perseus Jackson?"Frank asked.

"Yep" Everyone (Except hazel and I) replied.

"He didn't tell me"Frank,Hazel and I whispered.

**"What will people think of your 'science' two thousand years from now?" Mr. D continued. "Hmm? They will call it primitive mumbo jumbo.**

**That's what. Oh, I love mortals-they have absolutely no sense of perspective. They think they've come **_**so-o-o**_** far. And have they, Chiron? Look at this boy and tell me."**

****"I resent that statement!"Rachel said, looking crossed.

**I wasn't liking Mr. D much, but there was something about the way he called me mortal, as if . . . he wasn't. It was enough to put a lump in my throat, to suggest why Grover was dutifully minding his cards, chewing his soda can, and keeping his mouth shut.**

**"Percy," Chiron said, "you may choose to believe or not, but the fact is that **_**immortal**_** mean immortal. Can you imagine that for a moment, never dying? Never fading? Existing, just as you are, for all time?"**

**I was about to answer, off the top of my head, that it sounded like a pretty good deal, but the tone of Chiron's voice made me hesitate.**

**"You mean, whether people believed in you or not," I said.**

**"Exactly," Chiron agreed. "If you were a god, how would you like being called a myth, an old story to explain lightning? What if I told you, Perseus Jackson, that someday people would call **_**you **_**a myth,**

Annabeth smiled."Just like now."

Everyone except Piper and Jason. (A/N; They're just hating)

**just created to explain how little boys can get over losing their mothers?"**

****"That's a low blow chiron!" The Stolls said, shaking thei. Heads at Chiron.

"That was mean" Rachel and Hazel said.

"Why would you tell him that?" Annabeth and I asked.

Chiron looked down and said," I think we have established that I am not good with words"

"True Chiron but that was not nice" Leo said.

**My heart pounded. He was trying to make me angry for some reason, but I wasn't going to let him.**

"Good." Jason said. The rest of us, minus piper and Jason, nodded in approval.

**"I wouldn't like it. But I don't believe in gods."**

**"Oh, you'd better," Mr. D murmured. "Before one of them incinerates you."**

**Grover said, "P-please, sir. He's just lost his mother. He's in shock."**

**"A lucky thing, too," Mr. D grumbled, playing a card. "Bad enough I'm confined to this miserable job, working with boys who don't even believe!"**

**He waved his hand and a goblet appeared on the table, as if the sunlight had bent, momentarily, and woven the air into glass. The goblet filled itself with red wine.**

Travis smiled evily and turned to us,"What would have happened if our dear old camp director would have gotten drunk in front of Perce?"

We all cracked up at the thought.

"He would have probably gotten into a fight" Apollo said with a smile.

Zeus glared at Dionysus."Remember your restrictions! You better not get drunk!"

"And In front of our children to" Demeter said.

**My jaw dropped, but Chiron hardly looked up.**

**"Mr. D, he warned, "your restrictions."**

**Mr. D looked at the wine and feigned surprise.**

**"Dear me." He looked at the sky and yelled, "Old habits! Sorry!"**

Zeus rolled his eyes at his son and said," Old habits my ass Dionysus. Damn right you better be sorry."

Dionysus pouted and we all had to supress our laughter again.

**More thunder.**

**Mr. D waved his hand again and the wineglass changed into a fresh can of Diet Coke. He sighed unhappily, popped the top of the soda, and went back to his card game.**

**Chiron winked at me. "Mr. D offended his father a while back, took a fancy to a wood nymph who had been declared off-limits."**

**"A wood nymph," I repeated, still staring at the Diet Coke can like it was from outer space**

****"Diet coke from outer space" Travis and Connor said chuckling.

**"Yes," Mr. D confessed. "Father loves to punish me. The first time. Prohibition. Ghastly! Absolutely horrid ten years! The second time-well, she was pretty, and I couldn't stay away-the second time. He sent me here. Half-Blood Hill. Summer camp for brats like you. 'Be a better influence,' he told me. 'Work with youths rather than tearing them down.' Ha! Absolutely unfair."**

****Zeus glared at Dionysus again.

"More like unfair for us" Nico and a few other muttered.

**Mr. D sounded about six years old, like a pouting little kid.**

Chris said,"Got that right" under his breath and only the demigods heard it and we bursted out laughing.

**"And . . ." I stammered, "your father is . . ."**

**"Di **_**immortals,**_** Chiron," Mr. D said. "I thought you taught this boy the basics. My father is Zeus, of course."**

**I ran through D names from Greek mythology. Wine. The skin of a tiger. The satyrs seemed to work here. They way Grover cringed, as if Mr. D were his master.**

**"You're Dionysus," I said. "The god of wine."**

**Mr. D rolled his eyes. "What do they say, these days, Grover? Do the children say, "Well, duh!'?"**

**"Y-yes, Mr. D."**

**"Then, well, duh! Percy Jackson. Did you think I was Aphrodite, perhaps?"**

The said women huffed indignantly and threw her Gucci bag at Dionysus.

**"You're a god."**

**"Yes, child."**

**"A god. You."**

****"Hahahahaha" Poseidon and Hades started laughing.

**He turned to look at me straight on and I saw a kind of purplish fire in his eyes, a hint that this whiny, plump little man was only showing me the tiniest bit of his true nature. I saw visions of grape vines choking unbelievers to death, drunken warriors insane with battle lust, sailors screaming as their hands turned to flippers, their faces elongating into dolphin snouts. I knew that if I pushed him, Mr. D would show me worse things. He would plant a disease in my brain that would leave me wearing a strait jacket in a rubber room for the rest of my life.**

Hades chuckled darkly, which made him look downright evil. "Scary stuff."

"He better not end up there you old drunk" Poseidon threatened darkly, as of thinking about the different ways he would tryto kill Dionysus.

**"Would you like to test me, child?" he said quietly.**

"**No. No, sir."**

**The fire died a little. He turned back to his card game. "I believe I win."**

**"Not quite, Mr. D," Chiron said. He set down a straight, tallied the points, and said, "The game goes to me."**

****"Damn you Chiron! How do you always win!?"Dionysus shouted.

**I thought Mr. D was going to vaporize Chiron right out of his wheelchair, but he just sighed through his nose, as if he were used to being beaten by the Latin teacher.**

At this Dionysus pouted.

**He got up, and Grover rose, too.**

**"I'm tired," Mr. D said. "I believe I'll take a nap before the sing-along tonight. But first, Grover, we need a talk, **_**again**_**, about your less-than-perfect performance on this assignment."**

**Grover's face beaded with sweat. "Y-yes sir."**

**Mr. D turned to me. "Cabin eleven, Percy Jackson. And mind your manners."**

**He swept into the farmhouse, Grover following miserably.**

**"Will Grover be okay?" I asked Chiron.**

****"Too loyal" Every friend of Percy's said with a smile.

**Chiron nodded, though he looked a bit troubled. "Old Dionysus isn't really mad. He just hates his job. He's been . . . ah, grounded, I guess you would say, and he can't stand waiting another century before he's allowed to go back to Olympus."**

**"Mount Olympus," I said. "You're telling me there really is a place there?"**

****"Oh no, we are all just high Percy. There is no mount Olympus. This is just an illusion" Travis said sarcastically.

"Talking to a book" Katie reminded him

Travis blushed and kept quiet.

**"Well now, there's Mount Olympus in Greece. And then there's the home of the gods, the convergence point of their powers, which did indeed used to be on Mount Olympus. It's still called Mount Olympus, out of respect to the old ways, but the palace moves, Percy, just as the gods do."**

**"You mean the Greek gods are here? Like . . . in **_**America?**_**"**

****"It does sound strange when youday it like that" Clarisse said.

"Percy does have a way with words" Frank said.

All the demigods who know Percy nodded and laughed.

**"Well, certainly. The gods move with the heart of the west."**

**"The what?"**

**"Come on, Percy. What you call 'Western civilization.' Do you think it's just an abstract concept? No, it's a living force. A collective consciousness that has burned bright for thousands of years. The gods are part of it. You might even say they are the source of it, or at least, they are tied to tightly to it that they couldn't possibly fade, not unless all of Western civilization were obliterated. The fire started in Greece. Then, as you well know-or as I hope you know, since you passed my course-the heart of the fire moved to Rome, and so did the gods. Oh, different names, perhaps-Jupiter for Zeus, Venus for Aphrodite, and so on-but the same forces, the same gods."**

**"And then they died."**

"Oh yeah we're an illusion too" Hermes said. All the gods chuckled.

**"Died? No. Did the West die? The gods simply moved, to Germany, to France, to Spain, for a while. Wherever the flame was brightest, the gods were there. They spent several centuries in England. All you need to do is look at the architecture. People do not forget the gods. Every place they've ruled, for the last three thousand years, you can see them in painting, in statues, on the most important buildings. And yes, Percy, of course they are now in your United states. Look at your symbol, the eagle of Zeus. Look at the statue of Prometheus and Rockefeller Center, the Greek facades of your government buildings in Washington. I defy you to find any American city where the Olympians are not prominently displayed in multiple places. Like it or not-and believe me, plenty of people weren't very found or Rome, either-America is now the heart of the flame. It is the great power of the West. And so Olympus is here. And we are here."**

**It was all too much, especially the fact that I seemed to be included in Chiron's we, as if I were part of some club.**

**"Who are you, Chiron? Who . . . who am I?"**

"You are Perseus 'The Beast' Jackson-" Travis stated

"You kickmonster ass-"Connor continued.

"And you defeated Kronos!" They finished.

"Either that or you are Darth Vader!" They said.

**Chiron smiled. He shifted his weight as if he were going to get up out of his wheelchair, but I knew that was impossible. He was paralyzed from the waist down.**

"That's what you think!" Apollo said.

**"Who are you?" he mused. "Well, that's the question we all want answered, isn't it? But for now, we should get you a bunk in cabin eleven. There will be new friends to meet. And plenty of time for lessons tomorrow. Besides, there will be s'mores at the campfire tonight, and I simply adore chocolate."**

"Understatement" everyone said causin Chiron to blush.

**And he did rise from his wheelchair. But there was something odd about the way he did it. His blanket fell away from his legs, but the legs didn't move. His waist kept getting longer, rising above his belt. At first, I thought he was wearing very long, white velvet underwear, but as he kept rising out of the chair, taller than any man, I realized that the velvet underwear wasn't underwear; it was the front of an animal, muscle and sinew under coarse white fur. And the wheelchair wasn't a chair. It was some kind of container, an enormous box on wheels, and it must've been magic, because there's no way it could've held all of him. A leg came out, long and knobby-kneed, with a huge polished hoof.**

**Then another front leg, then hindquarters, and then the box was empty, nothing but a metal shell with a couple of fake human legs attached.**

**I stared at the horse who had just sprung from the wheelchair: a huge white stallion. But where its neck should be was the upper body of my Latin teacher, smoothly grafted to the horse's trunk.**

**"What a relief," the centaur said. "I'd been cooped up in there so long, my fetlocks had fallen asleep, Now, come, Percy Jackson. Let's meet the other campers."**

"Probably gave him a heart attack Chiron.."Annabeth and Grover said.

Before anyone could say anything else, there was a blinding flash of light and three guys appeared.

Two of them had blonde hair and sky-blue eyes while the other one had black hair and green eyes.

"Who are you?" Thalia asked.

"I am Perseus" A blonde haired and blue eyed boy said

"I am Theseus" A black haired and green eyed guy said.

"And I am Hercules" said the other blonde and blue eyed guy

"Oh my gods.."Leo said,looking at Hercules."You sir, are a BEAST!" (A/n; thanks to Thomaskm99 for giving me that idea :)

Jason P.O.V

OH STYX


	9. Heroes of Old:The plan

No one's P.O.V

Everyone stared at the three young men in shock. No hero had ever come back from the dead, but here were three of the greatest heroes in history!

Leo's P.O.V

OH MY FREAKING GODS!

I can't believe it! The best heroes EVER were right in front of me!

After a few minutes, the dark-haired, green-eyed guy who said he was Theseus and the blond haired guy that said he was Perseus looked a bit creeped out, but Hercules seemed to enjoy the attention.

Wow, one of my idols is a prick...

Jason's P.O.V

After a while, I got over my shock (not really).

I smirked and looked over at Annabeth and Thalia.

They were always going on and on about how Jackson was the greatest hero they had ever met, blah blah blah. Well, they were bound to change their minds after meeting Hercules, my brother, who is the greatest hero of all time.

I was expecting them to be awed (and maybe bow) with being surprised when I looked at them is an understatement.

They were looking at Hercules with absolute hatred. Annabeth looked like she wanted to pull out her knife, but Thalia actually pulled out her spear and was sharing looks with Annabeth and Artemis, who looked like she might murder Hercules on the spot.

" What are we doing here, Father?" The blonde dude, Perseus, asked my dad with a confused expression.

My dad looked at him with the same expression and said,"I do not know son. But tell us Perseus, what time do you come from?"

The black haired guy, Theseus (Ugh, another son of Poseidon?) asked,"Wait, didn't you summon us?"

Apollo and Hermes smiled at Theseus and Hephaestus said,"No, we did not summon you here"

The three guys looked at each other and shrugged.

"Well.." Aphrodite started,sensing the tension.

Just then, a note appeared and fell into dads hand.

'Dear Gods,Demigods, And Heroes of Old,

The gods and demigods might be confused as to why we have brought Perseus, Theseus, and Hercules to Olympus in the future, so we want to explain.

We wanted these heroes to hear of the future. For Perseus to learn of his cousin (who enhedited his name), for Theseus to learn about his future brother, and for someone to knoc Hercules down to size.

We beg the people who want to hurt him to please do so, it might bring his enormous ego down a peg.

Now keep reading or you'll die painfully,

The Fates."

3rd person P.O.V

Everyone raised their eyebrows at the (*cough* Hercules) wondered who would want to hurt him, Theseus and Perseus were wondering about this guy from the future, Artemis, Thalia, and Annabeth were trying hard not to kill Hercules (yet :), and Jason,piper,Leo, and the rest were trying to decide what to do.

"Well everyone should go and call it a night. We deal and explain tommorow." Hermes offered.

Everyone nodded their heads and the gods, except Apollo and Hermes, flashed out of the throne room.

"Ok, so what now?" Thalia and Perseus asked at the same time. They both looked down,blushing.

"We go and show you your room, Thalia" Hermes said, smiling at his sons.

Everyone who knew the stolls made a mental note to be cautious.

"Do we _have _ to go to sleep? Im not tired" Nico muttered.

"Sure, Hades Jr." Apollo said, teasingly.

All the demigods, minus the H.o.O (Heroes of Old) laughed at this and Nico blushed.

"Son of hades?" Theseus asked kindly.

"Yep" Nico said,scowling at the laughing Apollo.

"Well.. I guess you guys could stay up late, the others didn't say at what time we have to be there..." Hermes said.

The demigods all nodded their heads and Hermes and Apollo led the way to a building outside of the throne room.

The building was made up of white marble and was, like everything in Olympus,extremely beautiful.

"Nice work, Annie" Thalia said when they walked toward the building.

"Thanks thals" Annabeth said smiling, not arguing about the 'Annie' thing.

The two gods led the way into a corridor and stopped.

"Ladies follow me" Hermes said.

"And dudes follow me" Apollo said.

Guys room.

All the guys had their mouths hung open at the sight of their rooms.

Jason,Leo, and Hercules (who were rooming together) had a huge room that looked half like an arcade, half like a regular room.

The rooms were magical, so when you went into one of them, it looked however you wanted it to look like.

Hercules's side had dark blue walls with gold colored markings around them. He had a king-sized bed that had pearly white bedpost also had golden maks around them, the golden marks spelled Hercules in Greek. In other words, his room wouldn't have looked out of place in a castle.

Jason had a more humble looking room than Hercules. His walls were a sky blue, with clouds all over. His bed looked exactly like a cloud, fluffy and white. The bed had a ton of pillows around them, all white, which added to the 'bed/cloud' look.

Leo's room was the most, in a way, normal looking one of the three. The walls were a dim,apple coloured red. The bed, which was the strangest thing in Leo's room, was long and slim, not like Hercules or Jason's huge beds, they had 'flames' in each side. There was a small desk filled with smal tools and gadgets, and some pictures of Leo with a beautiful woman.

The three guys stopped gawking at their room and followedApollo and the other guys to see the others rooms.

Next came Will solace, Chris Rodrigues,Grover,Frank and Perseus.

Their room was a lot bigger than the last one because more people would be in that room.

*I wouldn't put the room descriptions, just who rooms with who.

Last came The stolls,Nico, and Theseus.

After looking at everyone else's rooms, all the guys said goodnight and went to their separate rooms.

Travis nudged Connor and Nico and they turned to Theseus with identical smiles.

"What's up?" Theseus asks.

"Well, my friend, we" Travis said, gesturing himself,Nico, and Connor " are going to do some pranking. What are you gonna do?" Travis finished.

They had expected Theseus to roll his eyes and not respond or even tell them off. But Travis,Nico, and Connor were surprised when Theseus's eyes got a mischievous glint in them and he asked, "Can I come?"

Travis,Nico,and Connor looked at each other, who knew Theseus, Hero of Old, was a prankster? But they shook away the shock and nodded their heads.

"Travis-" Travis started.

" And Connor Stoll" Connor said

"Sons of Hermes" They both finished.

"Theseus, son of Poseidon" Theses said.

"Nico Di Angelo, Son of Hades"

"A.K.A Death boy!"Connor said, smirking.

"Shut up" Nico said, pushing Connor.

They shook hands.

"Theseus, my new friend, you have just met the masters of pranking" Travis said,smiling evily.

"And Travis, my new friend, you are looking at the pranking king" Theseus said with an identical smile.

"This is the beginning of a beautiful friendship" Connor said wiping a fake tear.

"You know" Nico said looking at Travis and Connor," He reminds me of Percy"

Connor smiled sadly,"We taught that guy so well"

"Who's Percy?" Theseus asked, curiously.

"Friend of ours and your half brother" Connor answered.

"But tommorow you'll learn more about him, so let's get pranking!" Travis said.

They nodded their heads and were about to pick who to prank, when someone knocked on the door.

Back to the girls.

The girls came into their room (a huge room that they were all sharing) and picked a bed.

Piper choose the one farthest from the window, where Reyna was sitting. Hazel picked the bed next to Reynasand Annabeth took the bed on Reynas right. Clarisse was sitting next to Rachel by the door. Thalia sat in the bed next to Annabeth and Katie.

Once they had all chosen a room, Thalia took Annabeth outside and said,"You know I can't stand having the... Guy here and not torture him! What could I do?" She asked, frustrated.

Annabeth thought for a moment and then got her old mischievous look in her eyes."The stolls and Death head" She said with a smile.

Thalia smiled slowly and dragged Annabeth to Nico, travis and Connors room.

They knocked on the door and saw that Theseus was rooming with them.

Annabeths P.O.V

When we got to the guys room, I had a plan already. After explaining it to Nico, The Stolls and,surprisingly, Theseus, I brought some of the girls, okay all of the girls and told them the plan

"But why would you want to prank Hercules?" Reyna asked me.

I liked Reyna. She was cool and collected, and I thought we could be friends when this war and prophesy thing was over.

"Because he's a douche that ruined thelive of a good friend of mine, who is now dead." Thalia said fiercely.

Reyna nodded and had an angry looIain her eye like the rest of the girls.

Travis and Conor looked at each other and at Theseus and Nico.

"Let the prancing begin!" They said in serious voices.


	10. The First Prank

****  
**HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE! :) PLEASE R&R!**

**THE PLAN**

Thalia stared at the Stolls with a mischievious look in her eye. "You think this will actually work?" Annabeth asked Travis.

Travis held a hand to his heart in mock hurt. "Why Annie! Do not insult my pranking abilities"

"Or underestimate them"Connor finished. The rest rolled their eyes.

"So let's start this!"Thalia said with excitement.

It was 2a.m. in the morning, the perfect time to start the plan.

**Pranking Hercules; Night Prank**

**1-Get Jason and Leo out the room.**

**2-Make sure the coast is clear from gods**

**3-Put a deep sleep spell on Hercules**

**4-Go crazy ;)**

They all went over the plan once more and gave out jobs.

"Piper, you distract Jason and Leo" Travis instructed.

"Kay" Piper said with a nod.

"Hazel and Frank, distract any gods that come to check on us" Connor continued.

"How do we distract gods?" Frank asked with a nervous and slightly panicked look on his face.

"The gods will probably send our dad, so you just tell him that a brilliant prank is going on" Travis suggested.

Hazel nodded. "But if it's Apollo?" She asked.

"Tell him that Lady Artemis is going to kill him for flirting with her Hunters again. That will get him to run" Thalia said with a smirk.

"Lou Ellen and anybody else who knows about sleeping spells can deal with Hercules" Travis said.

Lou Ellen nodded.

"What do you mean by 'Go Crazy?'"Thalia asked the Stolls with apprehension.

They gave her identical evil smiles. "You'll find out" They promised.

Everyone shuddered.

"Materials"The Stolls said together.

"We need a couple of things for the prank"Connor explained.

**Materials;**

**1-Shaving Cream**

**2-Permanent Marker**

**3-Make-up**

**4-Ants**

**5-Insects (Not spiders, Annie would freak out)**

**6-Mud**

**7-Rocks (really small ones)**

**8-Juice (Apple or Orange)**

**9-Crackers**

**10-Cameras**

**11-Cake**

Everyone who knew what Hercules had done (Everyone minus Piper and the Romans and Theseus) smiled at what he was gonna get.

"Oh the look on his face when he gets up" Theseus said smilling,"Priceless" He sighed.

"And what, pray tell, are you doing?" A male voice called out.

Everyone whipped their heads to the door. They saw a blonde-haired, blue-eyed guy with his arms crossed standing there.

"Hey Perce!" Theseus called out brightly.

"Theseus, what are you doing at this ungodly hour of the mornig?" Perseus asked, rubbing his eyes.

"Well old friend, we are planing to prank Herc. Wanna join?" Theseus responded.

Perseus's eyes light up."Count me in!"He said.

"Oh now this will be good"Theseus said to humself.

"Guys, Perce here is a mastermind when it comes to pranks. He will defenitely be of use"Theseus said to Travis and Connor.

"Back to the prank"Nico said.

"Ok, Katie, you and clarisse can go get the shaving cream, insects and Ants" Connor said.

Clarisse grunted but Katie said,"Where do we find shaving cream?"

Travis and Connor lifted their heads thoughtfully."I think we have some in our bags..."Travis said.

Connor went to check on the bags in his bed."Yep" He said pulling the container with shaving cream out of the bag.

"Good. Reyna and Annie can go get the rocks and the food"Travis said.

"Why do we need cake for?" Reyna asked, curiously.

"Stop calling me Annie!" Annabeth sai glaring.

"Duh for eating!"The Stolls and Theseus said together,ignoring Annabeth.

Reyna rolled her eyes while the Stolls and Theseus grinned at each other.

"Piper can go get the make-up and marker" Nico said.

"Were could I find them?"PIper asked.

"Just pray to your mom"Connor said with a smirk, earning a punch from Piper.

"Ok, so me, Connor, Nico, and Theseus will go get the mud and cameras"Travis finished.

Everyone except Perseus nodded.

"Forgeting me?"He asked teasingly.

"Hmm..You get the cameras"Theseus said.

"Alright"Perseus said with a shrug.

"People who we didn't call stay here until all of us come back"Travis said.

"Let's start this!"They all said together.

The prank was officially on.

First;Piper.

Piper went to the girl's room and sat down calmly/ She prayed to her mom.

_Hey mom. Um.. Would you mind giving me some make-up and a marker?"_She thought hesitantly.

A drowsy voice responded in her head.

_Sure sweet-heart. What do you want with the marker though? Ugh forget it, tell me another time._

Suddenly, a make-up kit and a permanent marker appeared in Piper's lap.

_Thanks Mom,_Piper thought with a smile.

Second;Annabeth and Reyna

Reyna snuck stealthily into the kitchens, making sure no-one heard her.

Reyna quickly open the 'fridge and pulled out the food they needed.

Meanwhile, Annabeth walked outside the building to get the small rocks.

She went through the rocks in the ground and finally foun 20 small pebbles and stuffed them in a bag.

They met up inside the building and went up to the Stoll's room.

Third;Katie and Clarisse.

Looking for insects and ants at 2 in the morning was not the girl's idea of fun. But here they were, collecting them and putting them in a bag.

"It's worth it" Clarisse kept saying whenever she picked out an insect.

Katie had an easier deal with ants but kept chanting along with Clarisse.

After they had enough ants and insects, they went inside the building.

Fourth;Perseus

Perseus snuck his way into the empty game/video room of a different building and walked over to the video section.

"Cameras... Cameras.."He kept saying as he searched the room.

"Styx" He said as a security guard pass through. He had hidden behind a pillar in the room and came back out when the guard left.

Acting quickly, Perseus crossed the room and finally saw the video cameras.

Before the guard could come bacK,Perseus took three cameras and quickly exited the building.

Fifth;Theseus, Nico and The Stolls

Theseus had showed them a short-cut out of the building and into a small garden outside.

"Hm, I don't even want to know about how you found this,Per-Theseus"Nico said quickly.

Theseus, unaware of Nico's mistake, laughed and said,"Yep, it's a long story"

Travis took the hose and wet some of the dirt in the garden, turning it into wet mud.

Connor,Nico, and Theseus filled their bags with it and went back inside.

*Back in the room*

"Phase one of prank one;Complete"Connor announced when he saw everyone had gathered the materials.

"Time for phase two" Nico said.

"The hard phase for some"Travis warned.

"Piper, get leo and Jason out of the room"Connor said.

"Alright"Piper said walking out og the room.

"Remember the signal!" Theseus called out to her.

"Alright, now that Beauty Queen is working on those two, Hazel and Frank. When she gives the signal, you two head out" Annabeth reminded them.

They nodded.

"Hey travis?" Katie asked.

"Hmm?"Travis replied

"Why did you put 'Prank one' one this?" She asked, holding the steps of the prank paper.

Travis and Connor shared a smile.

"Well, Katie, we aren't only going to prank him once"Travis said with a bright smile.

"But we'll tell you about that tommorow"Connor said.

"You'll probably see it"Travis said.

Just then they heard Piper said loudly.

"Yeah, I had this weird dream about gaia STARTING the war with the gods" They heard her say.

"Signal! Go!"Everyone said quietly.

Frank and Hazel walked out the door after the coast was clear.

"Now what?"Thalia asked.

Travis motioned everyone to come out the room and stay quiet.

"Lou and the Hecade campers get ready and walk ahead"Connor whispered.

They walked up to Hercules's room and slowly opened the door.

They sighed in relief when they saw that he was still sound asleep.

"Now!"Theseus said.

The Hecade campers stood in a circle around hercules and began chanting.

There chanting caused everyone to be a bit drowsy, but they shook it off.

The chanting stopped and Lou Ellen said,"Done!"

Pulling out the Permanent marker, and the rest of the materials, the Stoll brothers explained the rest of the prank.

Thalia approached Hercules, smirking, permanent marker in hand.

She uncapped it and wrote 'Turd' in the middle of his forhead.

Reyna, and Annabeth came toward him with the make-up and painted every inch of his face with it.

Theseus and Perseus got Hercules out of bed so the stolls could spread the shaving cream all over his sheets and bed.

Katie and clarisse place some of the bugs in his hair and bed.

Will spread mud in his hair.

Lou Ellen put the small pebbles in his bed and inside his shirt.

When they were done, Travis asked Lou if she could put a spell to make it permanent (an invisible to Hercules). Lou nodded and started her chanting.

When she finished placing the spell, the half-bloods admired their work.

Hercules's face was covered in either girly make-up or permanent marker (Thalia had taken the liverty to write insults all over like 'Ass' and worse). His blonde hair was covered in mud or filled with insect.

His bed whiter than it had been with the shaving cream,filled with stones and bugs.

The demigods held in their laughter and, before they left, Perseus place cameras all over the room (blackmail material).

They quickly left the room and ran into The Stolls room. They all burst into quiet laughter.

Travis and Connor held up their hands."Friends. We have just pranked Hercules, hero of old!"

They all laughed and cheered at this. This was one fo the record books.

Piper came into the room and closed the door.

"Leo and Jason got back. Didn't notice him though, they crashed right to bed"She said.

"Mission Accomplished!"The pranksters said gleefully.

"Hercules better watch out! Cuz it's not over!"Travis said doing a victory dance with Connor and Theseus.

The half-bloods didn't feel pity for him. Their only thought was; Hercules better watch it, the Stolls are after him!

The demigods who knew Percy, however, were thinking; We have to tell Perce about this!

Little did they know that Pecy had witnessed the entire prank...


	11. The Lord of The Bathroom Returns

Percy's P.O.V

Percy, after the discussion he had with Dakota about Kool-Aid, went right to his bunk and fell asleep.

Of course, after he hit the bunk, he had a dream.

~~~~~~~~~~~Percy's Dream~~~~~~~~~

In his drem, he was like a misty ghost. He was in a strange dark room and he decided to walk around and explore. He saw a door in the left side of the square room and opened it to discover a bigger room.

In this room, he saw three ladies. Really and extremely old ladies.

Percy knew who these ladies were, but he still felt apprehension when he approached them. The fates never brought good news.

One of the fates turned to him and smiled, which looked freaking creepy to him.

"Hello Perseus" They said together, which added to the creepiness.

"Uh.. Hi" Percy said, not knowing what else to do.

The fates all smiled at him and he was wishing someone would wake him up already.

"We want to do you a favor,Perseus" One of the fates explained.

"Percy" Percy said,automatically.

The fates didn't seem to listen."We want to take you to your friends" The head Fate explained.

Percy gasped and said,"Seriously?" If the Fates were kiding about this,they were going to taste Riptide. Even if it's stupid to attack the fates, Percy will do it.

But the fates didn't look like they were kidding. One of them snapped their fingers and Percy was suddenly in what looked like a hotel room.

Percy was going to ask out loud why he was here,because if this was some weird vision of the past, he really didn't want to find out what the person the fates where going to show him did in that room.

But then, he saw all his friends,which shocked him. His friends from Camp Half-Blood and Camp Jupiter. And Annabeth,who looked as beautiful as he remembered but with a kind of sadness in her eyes.

They were with a couple of people Percy had never seen before. Two of those people looked like Zeus' kids, blonde hair and blue eyes,a girl who was clearly a daughter of Aphrodite, and the other one was a guy that looked just like him.

_Holy Poseidon_,Percy thought as he looked at his double. When Poseidon said I'd get sibblings, I didn't expect them to be this old, or be my double,Percy thought.

His friends seem to be planning something. He strained his ears but when he saw Travis,Connor, and Nico were talking, he knew it was a prank.

He quickly found out that his twin was really Theseus and he didn't question it because he had been through weirder shit.

He also found out that Hercules and Perseus were here too. He kinda wanted to meet Theseus (it was weird to have a living human brother) and Perseus (who Percy thought was a badass). If he ever saw Hercules...well let's just say shit would get real.

So he found out that his friends were planning a prank on Hercules. He couldn't help but start craking up when he heard their plan.

And knowing Travis and Connor,this wouldn't be the last prank either.

~~~~~~~~~~After Prank~~~~~~~~~

Percy couldn't help but laugh his ass off at how Hercules looked. And apperantly,it was the same thing with his friends.

He smiled as his friends celebrated success but felt sad because he wasnt with them.

"You will join them soon" A voice behind him said,scaring the Hades out of Percy.

He turned to see the three fates again and asked,"When? When Hades decides to become a hippie instead of a goth?"

The fates just smiled and whispered,"Soon"

Percy sighed. He wanted to be with his friends more than anything and now he might have a chance.

But of course,the ADHD part of him couldn't keep still.

"What's gonna happen to me now?" He asked,he didn't want to be a ghost in a dark room while he waited.

"Be patient" They responded.

~~~~~Frank's P.O.V~~~~~

After sleeping for a while,Franks , he walked out of his bedroom and went into the living room of their hotel room,thinking he might eat something now.

When he got there,he saw he wasn't the only one that had woken up.

Annabeth,The Stolls, Nico,Hazel, Perseus and Theseus were sitting down and eating breakfast in a white table that was filled with amazing food.

"Hey guys" Frank greeted, with a huge smile on his face. He sat down next to Hazel and started pilling his plate with food.

"Morning Peeps!" Came a tired but still excited Leo into the living room.

"Hey Leo" Most people greeted.

"Ready for today's chapter?" Frank asked Hazel.

Hazel nodded and said,"You know,it's kinda weird to listen to Percy's story"

Frank nodded."It's funny to know what he's thinking too" He said with a laugh.

"He looked a lot more serious in Camp" Hazel said with a small smile.

~~~~3rd Person P.o.v~~~~~~

When everyone finally finished their breakfast and were now wondering where they would go now, when Hermes appeared in the middle of the room.

Surprised,Frank jumped up and fell out of his chair,which caused everyone to laugh.

"Morning!" Hermes said cheerfully."Time to read. Everyone ready?"

"Yes!" Perseus and Theseus said with excitement. Nobody wanted to tell them anything about their cousin/brother and they were really curious.

"Let's go then"Hermes said,snapping his fingers.

Everyone suddenly found themselves in the Throne room.

"Morning" Apollo called out cheerfully.

Everyone gave back greetings and waited for Zeus to come into the Throne room.

As the rest of the gods popped in, they noticed Hercules and couldn't help laughing at him, much to his confusion because of the spell they had placed on him.

Poseidon appeared in his Throne and quickly looked around."I'm guessing 'the mighty Zeus' still hasn't gotten his ass out of bed?" He asked with a crooked smile, after laughing at Hercules.

Everyone in the Throne room, except Jason and Hercules,exploded with laughter at the comment.

"Not yet, Uncle P" Hermes responded.

Poseidon's eyes got a spark of mischief. He snapped his fingers and said,"Well he should be here in a while" with a wicked smile.

Everyone waited in anticipation after that. And sure enough, ten minutes later they heard it.

"POSEIDON!" A voice shouted.

They all turned to see Zeus, the mighty king of the Gods, soaked to the skin with some pinkish liquid.

All the Gods, except for Athena and Hera, started laughing their asses off at the sight of Zeus covered in pink.

"Yes Brother?" Poseidon asked in an innocent voice filled with laughter.

The demigods could just barely contain their laughter. Even Perseus wanted to laugh. And the dissaproving glares of Jason and Hercules wanted them to laugh even more.

"Nothing" Zeus roared."We will speak of this later" He said,snapping his fingers. The pink washed off him but not before Hermes and Apollo took a picture, and Travis and Connor got it on tape.

"On to the book" Zeus said,making the book appear.

"I will read" Poseidon suggested,taking the book.

"**I Become Supreme Lord of the Bathroom," **He read, smiling slightly

**"Once I got over the fact that my Latin teacher was a horse, we had a nice tour, though I was careful not to walk behind him. I'd done pooper-scooper patrol in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade a few times, and, I'm sorry, I did not trust Chiron's back end the way I trusted his front"**

The campers,even the serious ones, bursted out laughing. Chiron started blushing at the comment.

"Intersting" Hermes said, with a chuckle.

**We passed the volleyball pit. Several of the campers nudged each other. One pointed to the minotaur horn I was carrying. Another said, "That's him."**

"The boy who lived" The stolls said dramatically.

"Dude that's Harry Potter" Chris said,rolling his eyes.

"Not that one" Travis said in a voice that suggested this was obvious.

"The boy who lived and kicked minatour ass" Connor finished,earning a high-five from his brother.

**Most of the campers were older than me. Their satyr friends were bigger than Grover, all of them trotting around in orange CAMP HALF-BLOOD T-shirts, with nothing else to cover their bare shaggy hindquarters. I wasn't normally shy, but the way they stared at me made me uncomfortable. I felt like they were expecting me to do a flip or something**

Leo snickered."Shaggy hindquarters" He said to the Stolls.

**I looked back at the farmhouse. It was a lot bigger than I'd realized—four stories tall, sky blue with white trim, like an upscale seaside resort. I was checking out the brass eagle weather vane on top when something caught my eye, a shadow in the uppermost window of the attic gable. Something had moved the curtain, just for a second, and I got the distinct impression I was being watched.**

"The Oracle?" Rachel and Jason asked. No one responded.

**"What's up there?" I asked Chiron.**

**He looked where I was pointing, and his smile faded. "Just the attic."**

**"Somebody lives there?"**

**"No," he said with finality. "Not a single living thing."**

"That isn't creepy at all Chiron" Piper said,rolling her eyes.

Frank sighed."Percy must've been creeped out by all of this" He said to Hazel who nodded.

**I got the feeling he was being truthful. But I was also sure something had moved that curtain.**

**"Come along, Percy," Chiron said, his lighthearted tone now a little forced. "Lots to see."**

Annabeth raised an eyebrow."I can't believe he saw through that" She whispered.

Thalia heard the whisper and smirked.

**We walked through the strawberry fields, where campers were picking bushels of berries while a satyr played a tune on a reed pipe.**

**Chiron told me the camp grew a nice crop for export to New York restaurants and Mount Olympus. "It pays our expenses," he explained. "And the strawberries take almost no effort."**

**He said Mr. D had this effect on fruit-bearing plants: they just went crazy when he was around. It worked best with wine grapes, but Mr. D was restricted from growing those, so they grew strawberries instead.**

**I watched the satyr playing his pipe. His music was causing lines of bugs to leave the strawberry patch in every direction, like refugees fleeing a fire. I wondered if Grover could work that kind of magic with music.**

"Not yet" Annabeth and Thalia said with smirks.

Grover blushed.

**I wondered if he was still inside the farmhouse, getting chewed out by Mr. D.**

**"Grover won't get in too much trouble, will he?" I asked Chiron. "I mean ... he was a good protector. Really."**

Grover smiled."Thanks Perce" He said quietly.

**Chiron sighed. He shed his tweed jacket and draped it over his horses back like a saddle. "Grover has big dreams, Percy. Perhaps bigger than are reasonable**

Annabeth,Grover, and Thalia frowned.

**To reach his goal, he must first demonstrate great courage by succeeding as a keeper, finding a new camper and bringing him safely to Half-Blood Hill."**

**"But he did that!"**

"I know!" Thalia said,huffing.

**"I might agree with you," Chiron said. "But it is not my place to judge. Dionysus and the Council of Cloven Elders must decide. I'm afraid they might not see this assignment as a success. After all, Grover lost you in New York. Then there's the unfortunate ... ah ... fate of your mother. And the fact that Grover was unconscious when you dragged him over the property line. The council might question whether this shows any courage on Grover's part.**

**"**It sure is braver than anything those over-weight, lazy, good for nothing concil members can do" Nico said angrily.

Thalia and most of the campers nodded in agreement.

**I wanted to protest. None of what happened was Grover's fault. I also felt really, really guilty. If I hadn't given Grover the slip at the bus station, he might not have gotten in trouble.**

"Blaming himself again" Grover said. Thalia and Annabeth smiled,along with Percy's friends.

**"He'll get a second chance, won't he?"**

**Chiron winced. "I'm afraid thatwasGrover's second chance, Percy. The council was not anxious to give him another, either, after what happened the first time, five years ago. Olympus knows, I advised him to wait longer before trying again. He's still so small for his age..."**

**"How old is he?"**

**"Oh, twenty-eight."**

"Damn, you're old" Leo said,looking at Grover with surprise

"How old are-" Connor started to ask before Grover cut him off.

"Thirty eight" He said quickly.

**"What! And he's in sixth grade?"**

**"Satyrs mature half as fast as humans, Percy. Grover has been the equivalent of a middle school student for the past six years."**

"Tough shit, bro" Travis said.

"Six Grade for six years? Living hell for me" Connor said with a shudder.

Grover just nodded.

**"That's horrible."**

"Perce thinks that too" Travis said.

"I wonder what would happen if Percy had to stay in six grade for six years" Nico said thoughtfully.

"That would mean six schools burnt down" Thalia responded which cause most people present to laugh.

**"Quite," Chiron agreed. "At any rate, Grover is a late bloomer, even by satyr standards, and not yet very accomplished at woodland magic. Alas, he was anxious to pursue his dream. Perhaps now he will find some other career..."**

"I always wondered what Chiron said about us when we weren't there" Nico said,looking at Chiron.

**"That's not fair," I said. "What happened the first time? Was it really so bad?"**

"Yes" Grover said,looking at Thalia.

**Chiron looked away quickly. "Let's move along, shall we?"**

**But I wasn't quite ready to let the subject drop. Something had occurred to me when Chiron talked about my mother's fate, as if he were intentionally avoiding the word beginnings of an idea—a tiny, hopeful fire—started forming in my mind.**

"Oh no. Percy has an idea" Frank said.

"Everyone hit the deck!" Nico and the Stolls shouted.

**"Chiron," I said. "If the gods and Olympus and all that are real ..."**

**"Yes, child?"**

**"Does that mean the Underworld is real, too?"**

"Oh no.. I see where he's going with this" Leo said,shaking his had wanted to do the same a couple of times now.

**Chiron's expression darkened.**

**"Yes, child." He paused, as if choosing his words carefully. "There is a place where spirits go after death. But for now ... until we know more ... I would urge you to put that out of your mind."**

**"What do you mean, 'until we know more'?"**

**"Come, Percy. Let's see the woods.**

**As we got closer, I realized how huge the forest was. It took up at least a quarter of the valley, with trees so tall and thick, you could imagine nobody had been in there since the Native Americans.**

**Chiron said, "The woods are stocked, if you care to try your luck, but go armed."**

**"Stocked with what?" I asked. "Armed with what?"**

**"You'll see. Capture the flag is Friday night. Do you have your own sword and shield?"**

"Who brings their own sword and shiled to camp?" Hazel asked.

Jason,Thalia, and Annabeth raised their hands.

**"My own—?"**

**"No," Chiron said. "I don't suppose you do. I think a size five will do. I'll visit the armory later."**

**I wanted to ask what kind of summer camp had an armory, but there was too much else to think about, so the tour continued. We saw the archery range, the canoeing lake, the stables (which Chiron didn't seem to like very much),**

Everyone,even the gods, snickered. Chiron just huffed.

**the javelin range, the sing-along amphitheater, and the arena where Chiron said they held sword and spear fights.**

**"Sword and spear fights?" I asked.**

**"Cabin challenges and all that," he explained. "Not lethal. Usually. Oh, yes, and there's the mess hall."**

"Great subject change" Apollo said sarcastically.

**Chiron pointed to an outdoor pavilion framed in white Grecian columns on a hill overlooking the sea. There were a dozen stone picnic tables. No roof. No walls.**

**"What do you do when it rains?" I asked.**

**Chiron looked at me as if I'd gone a little weird.**

"Seaweed Brain" Thalia and Annabeth muttered.

"Hey,it's a fair question" Nico protested.

"And it did rain that one time" Grover added, earning curious looks from Jason,Piper, and Leo.

**"We still have to eat, don't we?" I decided to drop the subject.**

**Finally, he showed me the cabins. There were twelve of them, nestled in the woods by the lake. They were arranged in a U, with two at the base and five in a row on either side. And they were without doubt the most bizarre collection of buildings I'd ever seen.**

The gods raised their eyebrows at the comment.

**Except for the fact that each had a large brass number above the door (odds on the left side, evens on the right), they looked absolutely nothing alike. Number nine had smokestacks, like a tiny factory. Number four had tomato vines on the walls and a roof made out of real grass. Seven seemed to be made of solid gold, which gleamed so much in the sunlight it was almost impossible to look at. They all faced a commons area about the size of a soccer field, dotted with Greek statues, fountains, flower beds, and a couple of basketball hoops (which were more my speed).**

**In the center of the field was a huge stone-lined firepit. Even though it was a warm afternoon, the hearth smoldered. A girl about nine years old was tending the flames, poking the coals with a stick.**

Hestia beamed at this.

"Wait,you have 2 gods in your camp?" Reyna asked with some jealousy. It wasn't fair that they had all the attention.

"Were just that awesome" Travis said with a smirk.

**The pair of cabins at the head of the field, numbers one and two, looked like his-and-hers mausoleums, big white marble boxes with heavy columns in front. Cabin one was the biggest and bulkiest of the twelve. Its polished bronze doors shimmered like a hologram, so that from different angles lightning bolts seemed to streak across them.**

Zeus and his kids,except Thalia and Jason, smiled at the mention of their cabin.

**Cabin two was more graceful somehow, with slimmer columns garlanded with pomegranates and flowers. The walls were carved with images of peacocks.**

"Hera" The Greek campers snarled.

**"Zeus and Hera?" I guessed.**

**"Correct," Chiron said.**

**"Their cabins look empty."**

**"Several of the cabins are. That's true. No one ever stays in one or two."**

**Okay. So each cabin had a different god, like a mascot.**

The gods, besides Hermes,Apollo, and Poseidon, looked a bit offended.

The demigods had small smiles on their faces.

_Oh Percy_, was the thought in everyone's mind ((Except for the people that didn't know him))

**Twelve cabins for the twelve Olympians. But why would some be empty?**

Piper, Jason and Lep looked confused at this. Twelve Cabins?

**I stopped in front of the first cabin on the left, cabin three.**

Poseidon beamed.

"Typical Percy" Thalia said.

**It wasn't high and mighty like cabin one, but long and low and solid. The outer walls were of rough gray stone studded with pieces of seashell and coral, as if the slabs had been hewn straight from the bottom of the ocean floor. **

"Wow" Every demigod, minus the Heroes of old, said. "Lucky" Thalia and Jason muttered.

**I peeked inside the open doorway and Chiron said, "Oh, I wouldn't do that!"**

**Before he could pull me back, I caught the salty scent of the interior, like the wind on the shore at Montauk. The interior walls glowed like abalone. There were six empty bunk beds with silk sheets turned down. But there was no sign anyone had ever slept there. The place felt so sad and lonely, I was glad when Chiron put his hand on my shoulder and said, "Come along, Percy."**

**Most of the other cabins were crowded with campers.**

**Number five was bright red—a real nasty paint job, as if the color had been splashed on with buckets and fists.**

Ares and Clarisse beamed.

"Because they did" Annabeth said.

**The roof was lined with barbed wire. A stuffed wild boar's head hung over the doorway, and its eyes seemed to follow me. Inside I could see a bunch of mean-looking kids, both girls and boys, arm wrestling and arguing with each other while rock music blared. The loudest was a girl maybe thirteen or fourteen. She wore a size XXXL CAMP HALF-BLOOD T-shirt under a camouflage jacket. She zeroed in on me and gave me an evil sneer. She reminded me of Nancy Bobofit, though the camper girl was much bigger and tougher looking, and her hair was long and stringy, and brown instead of red.**

"When I get my hands on Prissy, he's gonna wish the Romans still had him" Clarisse threatened while the others laughed at the description.

**I kept walking, trying to stay clear of Chiron's hooves. "We haven't seen any other centaurs," I observed.**

**"No," said Chiron sadly. "My kinsmen are a wild and barbaric folk, I'm afraid. You might encounter them in the wilderness, or at major sporting events. But you won't see any here."**

"The Party Ponies are great" The stolls said.

**"You said your name was Chiron. Are you really ..."**

**He smiled down at me."The Chiron from the stories? Trainer of Hercules and all that? Yes, Percy, I am."**

Hercules smirked proudly at being mentioned. Which cause the others to laugh again about his apperance.

**"But, shouldn't you be dead?"**

The demigods who knew Percy snorted.

"No tact at all" Most muttered.

**Chiron paused, as if the question intrigued him. "I honestly don't know aboutshouldbe. The truth is, Ican'tbe dead. You see, eons ago the gods granted my wish. I could continue the work I loved. I could be a teacher of heroes as long as humanity needed me. I gained much from that wish ... and I gave up much. But I'm still here, so I can only assume I'm still needed."**

**I thought about being a teacher for three thousand years. It wouldn't have made my Top Ten Things to Wish For list.**

Everyone laughed at this.

**"Doesn't it ever get boring?"**

**"No, no," he said. "Horribly depressing, at times, but never boring."**

**"Why depressing?"**

**Chiron seemed to turn hard of hearing again.**

**"Oh, look," he said. "Annabeth is waiting for us."**

**"**Oh this should be good" Thalia said. Annabeth rolled her eyes.

**The blond girl I'd met at the Big House was reading a book in front of the last cabin on the left, number eleven.**

"Still the Blonde Girl" Annabeth said with a frown.

"At least it's better than how he describe Clarisse" Nico whispered, making her smile.

**When we reached her, she looked me over critically, like she was still thinking about how much I drooled.**

"Was not" She muttered,blushing.

**I tried to see what she was reading, but I couldn't make out the title. I thought my dyslexia was acting up. Then I realized the title wasn't even English. The letters looked Greek to me. I mean, literally Greek.**

**There were pictures of temples and statues and different kinds of columns, like those in an architecture book.**

"Why am I not surprised?" Thalia said with a laugh.

**"Annabeth," Chiron said, "I have masters' archery class at noon. Would you take Percy from here?"**

**"Yes, sir."**

**"Cabin eleven," Chiron told me, gesturing toward the doorway. "Make yourself at home."**

**Out of all the cabins, eleven looked the most like a regular old summer camp cabin, with the emphasis threshold was worn down, the brown paint peeling. Over the doorway was one of those doctor's symbols, a winged pole with two snakes wrapped around it. What did they call it... ?**

"Five drachma he won't know" Nico said to The Stolls.

"I'll take you on in that" Annabeth said, smirking.

**A caduceus.**

Travis and Connor cursed as they pulled out the money.

**Inside, it was packed with people, both boys and girls, way more than the number of bunk beds. Sleeping bags were spread all over on the floor. It looked like a gym where the Red Cross had set up an evacuation center.**

**Chiron didn't go in. The door was too low for him. But when the campers saw him they all stood and bowed respectfully.**

**"Well, then," Chiron said. "Good luck, Percy. I'll see you at dinner."**

**He galloped away toward the archery range.**

**I stood in the doorway, looking at the kids. They weren't bowing anymore. They were staring at me, sizing me up. I knew this routine. I'd gone through it at enough schools.**

**"Well?" Annabeth prompted. "Go on."**

**So naturally I tripped coming in the door and made a total fool of myself.**

"Percy Jackson, Hero of Olympus everyone" Nico said sarcastically, causing the campers to laugh.

**There were some snickers from the campers, but none of them said anything.**

**Annabeth announced, "Percy Jackson, meet cabin eleven."**

**"Regular or undetermined?" somebody asked.**

**I didn't know what to say, but Annabeth said, "Undetermined."**

**Everybody groaned.**

**A guy who was a little older than the rest came forward.**

Annabeth,Thalia and Grover frowned.

**"Now, now, campers. That's what we're here for. Welcome, Percy. You can have that spot on the floor, right over there."**

**The guy was about nineteen, and he looked pretty cool. He was tall and muscular, with short-cropped sandy hair and a friendly smile. He wore an orange tank top, cutoffs, sandals, and a leather necklace with five different-colored clay beads. The only thing unsettling about his appearance was a thick white scar that ran from just beneath his right eye to his jaw, like an old knife slash.**

Travis and Connor glared and sneered.

**"This is Luke," Annabeth said, and her voice sounded different somehow. I glanced over and could've sworn she was blushing.**

"I was not!" Annabeth said indignantly.

"Yes you were" Chris said with a smirk.

**She saw me looking, and her expression hardened again. "He's your counselor for now."**

**"For now?" I asked.**

**"You're undetermined," Luke explained patiently. "They don't know what cabin to put you in, so you're here. Cabin eleven takes all newcomers, all visitors. Naturally, we would. Hermes, our patron, is the god of travelers."**

**I looked at the tiny section of floor they'd given me. I had nothing to put there to mark it as my own, no luggage, no clothes, no sleeping bag. Just the Minotaur's horn. I thought about setting that down, but then I remembered that Hermes was also the god of thieves.**

**I looked around at the campers' faces, some sullen and suspicious, some grinning stupidly, some eyeing me as if they were waiting for a chance to pick my pockets.**

Everyone laughed at that.

"Damn it" Hermes said.

**"How long will I be here?" I asked.**

**"Good question," Luke said. "Until you're determined."**

**"How long will that take?"**

**The campers all laughed.**

T.L.H.C (The lost hero crew) looked a bit confused at this but stayed quiet.

**"Come on," Annabeth told me. "I'll show you the volleyball court."**

**"I've already seen it."**

**"Come on." She grabbed my wrist and dragged me outside. I could hear the kids of cabin eleven laughing behind me.**

**When we were a few feet away, Annabeth said, "Jackson, you have to do better than that."**

"Ohh, Last name. What a burn" Nico said, earning a shove from Annabeth.

**"What?"**

**She rolled her eyes and mumbled under her breath, "I can't believe I thought you were the one."**

"Oh Annie, he is" Connor said,wiggling his eyebrows.

Annabeth blushed."I did not mean it like that!" She protested.

Thalia smirked."Keep telling yourself that Annie"She said.

**"What's your problem?" I was getting angry now. "All I know is, I kill some bull guy—"**

**"Don't talk like that!" Annabeth told me. "You know how many kids at this camp wish they'd had your chance?"**

**"To get killed?"**

**"To fight the Minotaur! What do you think we train for?" **

"That does sound nuts when you say it like that" Leo told Annabeth.

"Shut up Leo" Was her response.

**I shook my head. "Look, if the thing I fought really wastheMinotaur, the same one in the stories ..."**

**"Yes."**

**"Then there's only one."**

**"Yes."**

**"And he died, like, a gajillion years ago, right? Theseus killed him in the labyrinth. So ..."**

**"Monsters don't die, Percy. They can be killed. But they don't die."**

"Real simple Annie" Travis said.

**"Oh, thanks. That clears it up."**

"I agree with Kelp Head here" Thalia said.

**"They don't have souls, like you and me. You can dispel them for a while, maybe even for a whole lifetime if you're lucky. But they are primal forces. Chiron calls them arche types. Eventually, they re-form."**

**I thought about Mrs. Dodds. "You mean if I killed one, accidentally, with a sword—"**

**"The Fur ... I mean, your math teacher. That's right. She's still out there. You just made her very, very mad."**

**"**Alecto does really hate him" Hades said, smiling slightly.

**"How did you know about Mrs. Dodds?"**

**"You talk in your sleep."**

"And that comment is not creepy at all Annabeth" Grover said sarcastically.

**"You almost called her something. A Fury? They're Hades' torturers, right?"**

**Annabeth glanced nervously at the ground, as if she expected it to open up and swallow her.**

**"You shouldn't call them by name, even here. We call them the Kindly Ones, if we have to speak of them at all."**

**"Look, is there anything wecansay without it thundering?" I sounded whiny, even to myself, but right then I didn't care. "Why do I have to stay in cabin eleven, anyway? Why is everybody so crowded together? There are plenty of empty bunks right over there."**

**I pointed to the first few cabins, and Annabeth turned pale. "You don't just choose a cabin, Percy. It depends on who your parents are. Or ... your parent."**

**She stared at me, waiting for me to get it.**

**"My mom is Sally Jackson," I said.**

**"She works at the candy store in Grand Central Station. At least, she used to."**

**"I'm sorry about your mom, Percy. But that's not what I mean. I'm talking about your other parent. Your dad."**

**"He's dead. I never knew him."**

**Annabeth sighed. Clearly, she'd had this conversation before with other kids.**

"He surprises me with his observant-ness" Travis said,stroking an imaginary beard.

**"Your father's not dead, Percy.**

**"How can you say that? You know him?"**

"This sounds wrong for some reason" Nico said,smiling.

**"No, of course not."**

**"Then how can you say—"**

**"Because I knowyou. You wouldn't be here if you weren't one of us."**

**"You don't know anything about me."**

**"No?" She raised an eyebrow. "I bet you moved around from school to school. I bet you were kicked out of a lot of them."**

**"How—"**

**"Diagnosed with dyslexia. Probably ADHD, too."**

**I tried to swallow my embarrassment. "What does that have to do with anything?"**

**"Taken together, it's almost a sure sign. The letters float off the page when you read, right? That's because your mind is hardwired for ancient Greek.**

**And the ADHD—you're impulsive, can't sit still in the classroom. That's your battle field reflexes. In a real fight, they'd keep you alive. As for the attention problems, that's because you see too much, Percy, not too little. Your senses are better than a regular mortal's. Of course the teachers want you medicated. Most of them are monsters. They don't want you seeing them for what they are."**

**"You sound like ... you went through the same thing?"**

**"Most of the kids here did. If you weren't like us, you couldn't have survived the Minotaur, much less the ambrosia and nectar."**

**"Ambrosia and nectar."**

**"The food and drink we were giving you to make you better. That stuff would've killed a normal kid. It would've turned your blood to fire and your bones to sand and you'd be dead. Face it. You're a half-blood."**

**A half-blood.**

**I was reeling with so many questions I didn't know where to start.**

**Then a husky voice yelled, "Well! A newbie!"**

"Who could that be?" Travis asked sarcastically.

**I looked over. The big girl from the ugly red cabin was sauntering toward us. She had three other girls behind her, all big and ugly and mean looking like her, all wearing camo jackets.**

**"Clarisse," Annabeth sighed. "Why don't you go polish your spear or something?"**

**"Sure, Miss Princess," the big girl said. "So I can run you through with it Friday night."**

"I don't think that will work out for you" Nico said with a smirk.

Clarisse huffed."Shut it deadhead" She said.

**''Erre es korakas!" Annabeth said, which I somehow under stood was Greek for 'Go to the crows!' though I had a feeling it was a worse curse than it sounded. "You don't stand a chance."**

**"We'll pulverize you," Clarisse said, but her eye twitched. Perhaps she wasn't sure she could follow through on the threat. She turned toward me. "Who's this little runt?"**

**"Percy Jackson," Annabeth said, "meet Clarisse, Daughter of Ares."**

**I blinked. "Like ... the war god?"**

"No the god of love" Nico said. Ares glared fiercely at him but Nico didn't flich."Only Percy's glare is scary" Nico said with a shrug.

**Clarisse sneered. "You got a problem with that?"**

**"No," I said, recovering my wits. "It explains the bad smell"**

"Ooh Burn!" Hermes,Apollo, The Stolls and Leo said.

Eveyone else laughed.

**Clarisse growled. "We got an initiation ceremony for newbies, Prissy."**

"And that's where the nickname comes from" Thalia said.

**"Percy."**

**"Whatever. Come on, I'll show you."**

**"Clarisse—" Annabeth tried to say.**

**"Stay out of it, wise girl."**

**"**Ohh" Most campers said in realization.

"What is it?" Theseus asked.

"Thats where Percy got his nickname for Annabeth" Nico explains.

**Annabeth looked pained, but she did stay out of it,**

**and I didn't really want her help. I was the new kid. I had to earn my own rep.**

**I handed Annabeth my minotaur horn and got ready to fight, but before I knew it, Clarisse had me by the neck and was dragging me toward a cinder-block building that I knew immediately was the bathroom.**

**I was kicking and punching. I'd been in plenty of fights before, but this big girl Clarisse had hands like iron. She dragged me into the girls' bathroom. There was a line of toilets on one side and a line of shower stalls down the other. It smelled just like any public bathroom, and I was thinking—as much as Icouldthink with Clarisse ripping my hair out—that if this place belonged to the gods, they should've been able to afford classier johns.**

All the gods started laughing. Even Athena and Hera smiled.

"Yes Dyonisus. You need classier toilets" Hermes said,clutching his Throne for support.

"Oh no Hermes. He needs classier Johns" Apollo corrected.

This caused them all to laugh. And Dyonisus to huff indignantly.

**Clarisse's friends were all laughing, and I was trying to find the strength I'd used to fight the Minotaur, but it just wasn't there.**

**"Like he's 'Big Three' material," Clarisse said as she pushed me toward one of the toilets. "Yeah, right. Minotaur probably fell over laughing, he was so stupid looking."**

**Her friends snickered.**

**Annabeth stood in the corner, watching through her fingers.**

**Clarisse bent me over on my knees and started pushing my head toward the toilet bowl. It reeked like rusted pipes and, well, like what goes into toilets. I strained to keep my head up. I was looking at the scummy water, thinking, I will not go into that. I won't.**

**Then something happened. I felt a tug in the pit of my stomach. I heard the plumbing rumble, the pipes shudder. Clarisse's grip on my hair loosened. Water shot out of the toilet, making an arc straight over my head, and the next thing I knew, I was sprawled on the bathroom tiles with Clarisse screaming behind me.**

"GO PERCY!"The immature people shouted.

**I turned just as water blasted out of the toilet again, hitting Clarisse straight in the face so hard it pushed her down onto her butt.**

This caused the demigods to laugh and the Roman girls to gag at this.

**The water stayed on her like the spray from a fire hose, pushing her backward into a shower stall.**

**She struggled, gasping, and her friends started coming toward her.**

"In your faces!" The stolls shouted.

**But then the other toilets exploded, too, and six more streams of toilet water blasted them back. The showers acted up, too, and together all the fixtures sprayed the camouflage girls right out of the bathroom, spinning them around like pieces of garbage being washed away.**

**As soon as they were out the door, I felt the tug in my gut lessen, and the water shut off as quickly as it had started.**

**The entire bathroom was flooded. Annabeth hadn't been spared.**

Leo laughed."Oh. Annie got soaked" He said.

Annabeth glared at him and said,"Say that again and I'll get Percy's hellhound on you"

Which caused Leo to shut up.

**She was dripping wet, but she hadn't been pushed out the door. She was standing in exactly the same place, staring at me in shock**

**I looked down and realized I was sitting in the only dry spot in the whole room. There was a circle of dry floor around me. I didn't have one drop of water on my clothes. Nothing.**

**I stood up, my legs shaky.**

**Annabeth said, "How did you ..."**

**"I don't know."**

**We walked to the door. Outside, Clarisse and her friends were sprawled in the mud, and a bunch of other campers had gathered around to gawk. Clarisse's hair was flattened across her face. Her camouflage jacket was sopping and she smelled like sewage. She gave me a look of absolute hatred. "You are dead, new boy. You are totally dead."**

"A threat that hasn't been executed I may add" Connor said with a smart-ass tone.

"Shut it" Clarisse said,frowning.

**I probably should have let it go, but I said, "You want to gargle with toilet water again, Clarisse? Close your mouth."**

"BURN!" Nico,Theseus, and The Stolls shouted.

**Her friends had to hold her back. They dragged her toward cabin five, while the other campers made way to avoid her flailing feet.**

**Annabeth stared at me. I couldn't tell whether she was just grossed out or angry at me for dousing her.**

**"What?" I demanded. "What are you thinking?"**

**"I'm thinking," she said, "that I want you on my team for capture the flag."**

"And we know how that turned out" Travis said.

"Yeah with me as bait" Came a deep, familiar, male voice from behind.

Everyone turned and their faces went pale with surprise and shock.

Because behind them stood Percy Jackson.


	12. I love you all

**Hey guys, I'm sorry I haven't updated lately. I haven't found the time to write a new chapter.**

**Im making this authors note to say sorry and goodbye**

**Im handing the story to 'Just Another Wielder' because I can't update anymore.**

**Thank you for your reviews and support. You are all wonderful people. Thank you for making my day.**

**Goodbye.**


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